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ROW IX  MARK?! AM 


Giant  Hours 
With  Poet  Preachers 


BY 

WILLIAM   L.  STIDGER 


Introduction   by 

EDWIN  MARKHAM 


,^^^ 


THE   ABINGDON    PRESS 
NEW   YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
WILLIAM   L.  STIDGER 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


First  Edition  Printed  April,  191 8 
Reprinted  October,  1918;   May,  1922;   August,  1923 


3RLF 
YRL 


oyz^H'^.^^n 


To 

White-Souled 

EDWIN  MARKHAM 

Democracy's  Voice,  Humanity's  Friend 

I  Dedicate  This  Book 


^ 


\ 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 7 

Foreword 11 

AMERICAN  POETS 

I.    Edwin  Markham 15 

II.    Vachel  Lindsay 30 

III.  Joaquin  Miller 41 

IV.  Alan  Seeger 51 

ENGLISH  POETS 

V.    John  Oxenham 67 

VI.    Alfred  Noyes 83 

VII.     John  Masefield 97 

VIII.    Robert  Service 108 

IX.    Rupert  Brooke 117 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS 

Edwin    Markham Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Vachel  Lindsay 30 

Joaquin   Miller 41 

Alan  Seeger 51 

John  Oxenham 67 

Alfred  Noyes 83 

John  Masefield 97 

Robert  Service 108 

Rupert  Brooke 117 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  writing  to  the  readers  of  Mr.  Stidger's 
book  I  feel  as  though  I  were  writing  to 
old  friends,  friends  who  may  have  an  in- 
terest in  knowing  some  of  the  thoughts  that  I 
hold  regarding  questions  of  the  hour  and  ques- 
tions of  the  future. 

The  Christian  as  he  looks  out  upon  the  bat- 
tling and  broken  world  sees  much  to  sadden 
his  heart.  Thinkers  are  everywhere  asking, 
"Is  Christianity  a  failure?"  I  hasten  to  assure 
you  that  Christianity  has  not  failed,  for  Chris- 
tianity has  nowhere  been  tried  yet,  nowhere 
been  tried  in  a  large  social  sense.  Christianity 
has  been  tried  by  individuals,  and  it  has  been 
found  to  be  comforting  and  transforming.  But 
it  has  never  been  tried  by  any  large  group  of 
people  in  any  one  place — never  by  a  whole  city 
— never  by  a  whole  kingdom — never  by  a  whole 
people.  It  is  for  this  trial  that  the  watching 
angels  are  waiting. 

Our  holy  religion  is  not  a  saving  power 
merely  for  individuals ;  it  is  also  a  saving  power 
for  society  in  its  industrial  order.     We  have 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

applied  it  to  the  individual  in  the  past,  but  we 
have  never  made  any  wholehearted  effort  to 
make  religion  the  working  principle  of  society. 
Religion  is  always  cooperative  and  brotherly, 
but  we  have  not  yet  made  any  earnest  effort  to 
apply  the  cooperative  and  brotherly  principle 
to  business.  We  have  tried  to  persuade  the  in- 
dividual to  express  the  ideals  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  but  Vv^e  have  made  no  earnest  effort 
to  urge  society  to  express  the  ideals  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount. 

Therefore,  while  it  is  true  that  we  have  in- 
dividual Christians — men  and  women  who 
make  noble  sacrifices  in  their  effort  to  live  the 
good  life — it  is  also  true  that  we  have  no  Chris- 
tian society  anywhere  on  earth,  no  Christian 
civilization  anywhere  under  the  stars.  Some- 
times a  careless  talker  will  refer  to  our  social 
order  as  "a  Christian  civilization."  All  such 
references,  dear  friends,  disturb  our  hearts ;  for 
they  prove  that  the  speaker  has  no  conception 
of  what  a  Christian  civilization  would  be,  how 
noble  and  brotherly  it  would  be.  Five  minutes' 
reading  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  will  con- 
vince any  alert  mind  that  we  are  yet  thousands 
of  miles  from  a  Christian  civilization.  To 
speak  of  only  one  thing,  it  is  certain  that  in  a 
Christian  civilization  these  cruel  riches  we  see 


INTRODUCTION  9 

standing  side  by  side  with  these  cruel  poverties 
could  not  exist;  they  would  all  crumble  and 
vanish  away  in  the  fire  of  the  social  passion  of 
the  Christ. 

If  we  have  not  a  Christian  civilization,  what 
have  we?  We  have  a  civilization  that  is  half 
barbaric;  we  have  a  social  order  with  a  light 
sprinkling  of  Christians  in  it.  It  is  the  hope 
of  the  future  that  this  body  of  earnest  Chris- 
tian men  and  women  will  awaken  to  the  call 
of  the  social  Christ,  awake  determined  to  infuse 
his  spirit  into  the  industrial  order,  and  thus 
extend  the  power  of  the  cross  down  into  the 
material  ground  of  our  existence.  Men  are 
not  fully  saved  until  tools  are  saved,  till  in- 
dustries are  saved.  They  must  all  be  lit  with 
the  brother  spirit  of  Christ  the  Artisan. 

All  of  this  transformation  is  implied  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  For  that  sermon  may 
be  taken  to  be  the  first  draft  of  the  constitution 
of  the  new  social  order  that  the  Christ  has  in 
his  heart  for  men.  It  was  this  new  order  that 
he  had  in  mind  when  he  uttered  the  great  in- 
vitation, ''Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  All 
the  work-worn  toilers  of  the  world  were  to  find 
rest  in  the  new  brotherly  order  about  to  be 
established  on  the  earth.    The  Master  has  laid 


10  INTRODUCTION 

one  great  duty  upon  his  followers — to  em- 
brother  men  and  to  emparadise  the  world. 

This  is  a  great  labor,  for  it  demands  that  the 
spirit  of  the  brother  Christ  shall  sing  in  all  the 
wheels  and  sound  in  all  the  steps  of  our  in- 
dustrial life.  It  means  that  the  Golden  Rule 
shall  become  the  working  principle  in  our  social 
order.  This  is  the  salvation  that  Christ  came 
to  bring  to  the  world ;  this  is  the  glad  tidings ; 
this  the  good  news  to  men ! 

This  is  only  a  glimpse  of  the  great  social 
truth  of  the  Lord  that  is  beginning  to  break  like 
a  new  morning  upon  the  world.  And  what  I 
have  said  in  this  letter  I  have  tried  a  thousand 
times  to  say  in  my  poems  that  have  gone  out 
into  the  world.  And  this  new  note  I  catch  in 
the  lines  of  the  poets  everywhere  in  modern 
poetry,  especially  in  the  poets  discussed  in  the 
following  pages. 

Yours  in  the  Fellowship  of  the  great  hopes, 


West  New  Brighton,  N.  Y 


FOREWORD 

VACHEL  LINDSAY,  one  of  the  modern 
Christian  poets,  whose  writings  are 
discussed  in  this  book,  has  expressed 
the  reason  for  the  book  itself  in  these  four 
lines : 

"I  wish  that  I  had  learned  by  heart 
Some  lyrics  read  that  day; 
I  knew  not  'twas  a  giant  hour 
That  soon  would  pass  away." 

The  author  of  this  book  makes  no  assump- 
tion that  the  "Giant  Hours"  are  in  the  setting 
he  has  given  these  literary  gems,  but  in  the 
"lyrics"  themselves. 


AMERICAN  POETS 


Edwin  Markham 
Vachel  Lindsay 
Joaquin  Miller 
Alan  Seeger 


EDWIN  MARKHAM^ 

A  Study  of  Happiness  in  Poverty,  in  Service,  in 
Lowliness;  and  a  Bit  of  "Script"  for  the  Jour- 
ney OF  Life 

EDWIN  MARKHAM  is  the  David  of 
modern  poetry.  He  is  biblical  in  the 
simplicity  of  his  style.  He,  like  the  poet 
of  old,  tended  sheep  on  "The  Suisiin  Hills," 
and  of  it  he  speaks : 

"Long,  long  ago  I  was  a  shepherd  boy, 
My  young  heart  touched  with  wonder  and  wild  joy." 

The   Shoes   of   Happiness. 

None  less  than  William  Dean  Howells  has 
said  of  him,  "Excepting  always  my  dear  Whit- 
comb  Riley,  Edwin  Markham  is  the  first  of  the 
Americans."  "The  greatest  poet  of  the  cen- 
tury" is  the  estimate  of  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox; 
and  Francis  Grierson  adds,  "Edwin  Markham 
is  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  age,  and  the 


'The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission of  the  publishers,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  and  are  taken  from 
the  following  works:  The  Shoes  of  Happiness  and  The  Man  with  the  Hoe. 


15 


i6  GIANT  HOURS 

greatest  poet  of  democracy."  Dr.  David  G. 
Downey  makes  his  estimate  of  the  poet,  in  his 
book,  Modern  Poets  and  Christian  Teaching, 
a  httle  broader  and  deeper  in  the  two  phrases : 
"He  is  not  more  poet  than  prophet,"  and,  "He 
is  the  poet  of  humanity — of  man  in  relations." 
And  of  them  all  I  feel  that  the  latter  estimate 
is  best  put,  for  Edwin  Markham  is  more  than 
"the  poet  of  democracy";  he  is  the  poet  of  all 
humanity,  down  on  the  earth  where  humanity 
lives.  And  that  Dr.  Downey  was  right  in  call- 
ing him  "prophet"  one  needs  but  to  read  some 
lines  from  "The  Man  with  the  Hoe"  in  the 
light  of  the  Russian  revolution,  and  proof  is 
made: 

"O  masters,  lords  and  rulers  in  all  lands, 
Is  this  the  handiwork  you  give  to  God, 
This  monstrous  thing  distorted  and  soul-quenched? 
How  will  you  ever  straighten  up  this  shape? 

How  will  it  be  with  kingdoms  and  with  kings — 
When  those  who  shaped  him  to  the  thing  he  is — 
When  this  dumb  Terror  shall  reply  to  God, 
After  the  silence  of  the  centuries  ?" 

The  Man  with  the  Hoe. 

"How  will  it  be  with  kingdoms  and  with 
kings?"  the  "Man  with  the  Hoe"  is  answering 
in  Russia  this  star-lit  night  and  sun-illumined 
day.    Yes,  Markham  is  prophet  as  well  as  poet. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS  17 

'And  to  this  humble  writer's  way  of  reading 
poetry  there  were  never  four  Hnes  for  pure 
poetry  more  beautifully  writ,  neither  across  the 
seas,  nor  here  at  home,  neither  east  nor  west, 
than  these  four  from  ''Virgilia": 

"Forget  it  not  till  the  crowns  are  crumbled 

And  the  swords  of  the  kings  are  rent  with  rust; 
Forget  it  not  till  the  hills  lie  humbled, 
And  the  springs  of  the  seas  run  dust." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

Prophetic?  Yes!  But  ah,  the  music  of  it! 
Here  rings  and  here  sings  David  the  shepherd ; 
the  sweet  lute,  the  harp,  the  wind  in  the  trees, 
the  surge  of  the  ocean-reef.  It  is  music  of  a 
high  and  holy  kind. 

Which  reminds  me  that  I  am  to  treat  in  this 
chapter  on  Markham  only  of  what  he  has  writ- 
ten since  1906,  the  preceding  period,  best  known 
through  his  "Man  with  the  Hoe,"  having  been 
discussed  by  Dr.  Downey  in  the  book  hereto- 
fore mentioned.  I  have  the  joy-task  in  these 
brief  lines  to  bring  to  you  Markham's  "The 
Shoes  of  Happiness,"  which  seems  to  me  the 
strongest  book  he  has  written,  not  forgetting, 
either,  "The  Hoe"  book,  as  he  himself  calls  it. 

If  you  have  the  privilege  of  personal  friend- 
ship with  this  "Father  Poet,"  he  will  write  for 
you  somewhere,  some  time,  some  place,  these 


i8  GIANT  HOURS 

four  favorite  lines,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eyes 
that  is  half  boy  and  half  sage,  but  all  love, 
which  quatrain  he  calls  ''Outwitted" : 

"He  drew  a  circle  that  shur  me  oui — 
Heretic,  rebel,  a  thing  to  flout. 
But  Love  and  I  had  the  wit  to  win: 
We  drew  a  circle  that  took  him  in  I" 

The   Shoes  of  Happiness. 

And  with  these  four  lines  he  introduces  the 
new  book  of  poems,  "The  Shoes  of  Happiness." 

The  Happiness  of  Poverty 

One  wonders  where  "The  Shoes  of  Happi- 
ness" may  be  found,  and  the  answer  is  forth- 
coming in  the  first  of  "Six  Stories,"  when  he 
finds  that  the  Sultan  Mahmoud  is  near  unto 
death,  and  that  there  is  just  one  thing  that  will 
make  him  well,  and  that  is  that  he  may  wear 
the  shoes  of  a  perfectly  happy  man : 

"For  only  by  this  can  you  break  the  ban : 
You  must  wear  the  shoes  of  a  happy  man." 

The   Shoes   of   Happiness. 

The  Vizier  was  sent  to  find  these  shoes  or 
lose  his  own  head : 

"Go  forth,  Vizier,  when  the  dawn  is  red, 
And  bring  me  the  shoes,  or  send  instead, 
By  the  hand  of  this  trusted  slave,  your  head  1" 

The   Shoes  of  Happiness. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         19 

He  first  found  a  crowd  of  idle  rich  going 
forth  for  a  day's  outing  among  the  fields  and 
flowers,  a  ''swarm  of  the  folk  of  high  degree," 
and  thought  to  find  the  shoes  here,  but,  alas! 
he  found  that 

"In  each  glad  heart  was  a  wistful  cry ; 
Behind  each  joy  was  a  secret  sigh." 

The   Shoes  of  Happiness. 

He  turned  from  the  rich  and  sought  the 
homes  of  the  poor,  and  the  Father  in  the  home 
of  the  poor  said  unto  him : 

"Ah,  Vizier, 

I  have  seven  sweet  joys,  but  I  have  one  fear: 
The  dread  of  to-morrow  ever  is  here!" 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

A  Poet  was  found  weaving  a  song  of  happi- 
ness, and  the  Vizier  thought  that  surely  here 
would  he  find  the  man  with  the  "happy  shoes," 
but  the  Poet  cried : 

"No,"  sighed  the  poet ;  "you  do  me  wrong, 
For  sorrow  is  ever  the  nest  of  song." 

The   Shoes  of  Happiness. 

Everywhere  that  he  wandered  in  search  he 
found  some  touch  of  unhappiness.  He  tried 
Youth  and  Age,  but, 

"The  young  were  restless  that  youth  should  stay. 
The  old  were  sad  that  it  went  away." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 


20  GIANT  HOURS 

He  thought  to  find  the  shoes  on  the  feet  of 
the  Lover,  but  heard  the  Lover  say : 

"Yes,  yes;  but  love  is  a  tower  of  fears, 
A  joy  half  torment,  a  heaven  half  tears  1" 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

He  had  heard  of  a  wise  old  Sage,  who  had 
been  to  Mecca,  and  sought  him  only  to  hear,  "I 
am  not  glad ;  I  am  only  wise."  At  last  he  heard 
of  a  man  from  far  Algiers.  With  hurried  steps 
he  sought  in  vain.  At  last  one  day  he  found  a 
man  lying  in  a  field : 

"  'Ho,'  cried  Halil,  *I  am  seeking  one 
Whose  days  are  all  in  a  brightness  run.* — 
'Then  I  am  he,  for  I  have  no  lands, 
Nor  have  any  gold  to  crook  my  hands. 
Favor,  nor  fortune,  nor  fame  have  I, 
And  I  only  ask  for  a  road  and  a  sky — 
These,  and  a  pipe  of  the  willow-tree 
To  whisper  the  music  out  of  me.' 

"Out  into  the  field  the  vizier  ran. 
'Allah-il-Allah !  but  you  are  the  man ; 
Your  shoes  then,  quick,  for  the  great  sultan — 
Quick,  and  all  fortunes  are  yours  to  choose!' 
'Yes,  mighty  Vizier,  .    .    .  but  I  have  no  shoes  I* " 
The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

The  Happiness  of  Lowliness 

And  just  as  this  opening  poem  teaches  the 
happiness  of  poverty,  so  the  next,  "The  Juggler 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         21 

of  Touraine,"  teaches  the  happiness  of  lowU- 
ness. 

Poor  Barnabas,  just  a  common  juggler, 
when  winter  came,  because  he  had  been  spend- 
ing the  summer  amusing  people,  had  no  place 
to  go,  and  a  sympathetic  monk  took  him  into 
the  monastery  to  live.  Barnabas  was  happy 
for  a  time ;  but  after  a  while,  as  he  saw  every- 
body else  worshiping  the  Beautiful  Mother 
with  lute  and  brush,  viol,  drum,  talent,  and 
prayer,  he  began  to  feel  that  his  talents  were 
worthless : 

"But  I,  poor  Barnabas,  nothing  can  I, 
But  drone  in  the  sun  as  a  drowsy  fly." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

Then  came  a  thought  that  leaped  like  flame 
over  his  being,  and  an  hour  later  the  monks 
found  him,  kneeling  in  the  sacred  altar  place. 
What  he  was  doing  chagrined  them.  They 
were  shocked  just  as  many  people  of  this  day, 
to  see  a  man  worshiping  with  a  different  bend 
of  the  knee  than  that  to  which  they  had  been 
accustomed.  How  prone  we  are  to  judge  those 
who  do  not  worship  just  as  we  have  worshiped ! 
This  seems  such  a  common  human  weakness 
that  Alfred  Noyes,  with  a  touch  of  kindly  in- 
dignation, speaks  a  word  in  "The  Forest  of 


22  GIANT  HOURS 

Wild  Thyme"  that  may  be  interjected  just  here 
in  this  study  of  Barnabas  the  juggler,  whom 
the  monks  indignantly  found  worshiping  the 
Virgin  by  juggling  his  colored  balls  in  the  air, 
and  speaking  thus  as  he  juggled: 

"  'Lady,'  he  cried  again,  'look,  I  entreat : 
I  worship  with  fingers,  and  body,  and  feet  I' 

"And  they  heard  him  cry  at  Our  Lady's  shrine : 
'All  that  I  am,  Madame,  all  is  thine ! 
Again  I  come  with  spangle  and  ball 
To  lay  at  your  altar  my  little,  my  all !' " 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

But  the  poor  old  monks  were  indignant. 
They,  and  some  others  of  more  modern  days, 
had  never  caught  the  real  gist  of  the  "Judge 
not"  of  the  New  Testament ;  nor  had  they  read 
Noyes : 

"How  foolish,  then,  you  will  agree. 
Are  those  who  think  that  all  must  see 
The  world  alike,  or  those  who  scorn 
Another,  who  perchance,  was  born 
Where — in  a  different  dream  from  theirs — 
What  they  called  sins  to  him  are  prayers  I 
We  cannot  judge;  we  cannot  know; 
All  things  mingle,  all  things  flow ; 
There's  only  one  thing  constant  here — 
Love — that  untranscended  sphere: 
Love,  that  while  all  ages  run 
Holds  the  wheeling  worlds  in  one; 
Love,  that,  as  your  sages  tell. 
Soars  to  heaven  and  sinks  to  hell." 

"The  Forest  of  Wild  Thyme." 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         23 

No,  we  have  no  right  to  judge  one  another. 
The  monks  condemned  poor  Barnabas  because 
he  was  not  worshiping  as  they  had  always  wor- 
shiped. They  too  forgot  the  real  spirit  of  wor- 
ship as  they  condemned  him : 

"'Nothing  like  this  do  the  rules  provide! 
This  is  scandal,  this  is  a  shame, 
This  madcap  prank  in  Our  Lady's  name. 
Out  of  the  doors  with  him ;  back  to  the  street : 
He  has  no  place  at  Our  Lady's  feet !' " 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

However,  then,  as  now,  men  are  not  the  final 
judges : 

"But  why  do  the  elders  suddenly  quake, 
Their  eyes  a-stare  and  their  knees  a-shake? 
Down  from  the  rafters  arching  high. 
Her  blowing  mantle  blue  with  the  sky- — 
Lightly  down  from  the  dark  descends 
The  Lady  of  Beauty  and  lightly  bends 
Over  Barnabas  stretched  in  the  altar  place, 
And  wipes  the  dew  from  his  shining  face ; 
Then  touching  his  hair  with  a  look  of  light, 
Passes  again  from  the  mortal  sight. 
An  odor  of  liHes  hallows  the  air. 
And  sounds  as  of  harpings  are  everywhere. 

"  'Ah,'  cry  the  elders,  beating  the  breast, 
'So  the  lowly  deed  is  the  lofty  test! 
And  whatever  is  done  from  the  heart  to  Him 
Is  done  from  the  height  of  the  Seraphim !' " 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

"How  THE  Great  Guest  Came" 

A  Study  of  Complete  Happiness  in  Service 

I  have  never  found  a  poem  which  more  truly 


24  GIANT  HOURS 

pictures  the  Christ  and  how  he  comes  to  human 
beings  than  this  one  oi  Markham's.  Conrad 
the  cobbler  had  a  dream,  when  he  had  grown 
old,  that  the  Master  would  come  "His  guest  to 
be."  He  arose  at  dawn  on  that  day  of  great 
expectations,  decorated  his  simple  shop  with 
boughs  of  green  and  waited : 

"His  friends  went  home;  and  his  face  grew  still 
As  he  watched  for  the  shadow  across  the  sill ; 
He  lived  all  the  moments  o'er  and  o'er, 
When  the  Lord  should  enter  the  lowly  door — 
The  knock,  the  call,  the  latch  pulled  up, 
The  lighted  face,  the  oflfered  cup. 
He  would  wash  the  feet  where  the  spikes  had  been ; 
He  would  kiss  the  hands  where  the  nails  went  in; 
And  then  at  last  he  would  sit  with  him 
And  break  the  bread  as  the  day  grew  dim." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

But  the  Master  did  not  come.  Instead  came 
a  beggar  and  the  cobbler  gave  him  shoes;  in- 
stead came  an  old  crone  with  a  heavy  load  of 
faggots.  He  gave  her  a  lift  with  her  load  and 
some  of  the  food  that  he  had  prepared  for  the 
Christ  when  he  should  come.  Finally  a  little 
child  came  crying  along  the  streets,  lost.  He 
pitied  the  child  and  left  his  shop  to  take  it  to 
its  mother;  such  was  his  great  heart  of  love. 
He  hurried  back  that  he  might  not  miss  the 
Great  Guest  when  he  came.  But  the  Great 
Guest  did  not  come.    As  the  evening  came  and 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         25 

the  shadows  were  falHng  through  the  window 
of  his  shop,  more  and  more  the  truth,  with  all 
its  weight  of  sadness,  bore  in  upon  him,  that  the 
dream  was  not  to  come  true ;  that  he  had  made 
a  mistake;  that  Christ  was  not  to  come  to  his 
humble  shop.  His  heart  was  broken  and  he 
cried  out  in  his  disappointment: 

"Why  is  it,  Lord,  that  your  feet  delay? 
Did  you  forget  that  this  was  the  day?" 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

Then  what  sweeter  scene  in  all  the  lines  of 
the  poetry  of  the  world  than  this  that  follows? 
Where  is  Christ  more  wonderfully  and  simply 
summed  up;  his  spirit  of  love  and  care? 

"Then  soft  in  the  silence  a  voice  he  heard : 
'Lift  up  your  heart,  for  I  kept  my  word. 
Three  times  I  came  to  your  friendly  door; 
Three  times  my  shadow  was  on  your  floor. 
I  was  the  beggar  with  bruised  feet; 
I  was  the  woman  you  gave  to  eat ; 
I  was  the  child  on  the  homeless  street !' " 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

One  is  reminded  here  of  Masefield's  "The 
Everlasting  Mercy,"  wherein  he  speaks  as 
Markham  speaks  about  the  child: 

"And  he  who  gives  a  child  a  treat 
Makes  joy-bells  ring  in  Heaven's  street; 
And  he  who  gives  a  child  a  home 


26  GIANT  HOURS 

Builds  palaces  in  Kingdom  Come ; 
And  she  who  gives  a  baby  birth 
Brings  Saviour  Christ  again  to  earth." 

The  Everlasting  Mercy. 

''Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least 
of  one  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it 
unto  me,"  another  great-hearted  Poet  once 
said;  and  these  words  Markham,  in  "How  the 
Great  Guest  Came,"  has  made  real. 

"Scrip  for  the  Journey" 

"Scrip  for  the  Journey"  is  all  that  it  claims 
to  be.  Markham  is  not  doing  what  Lindsay 
did.  Lindsay  started  out  on  a  long  journey 
with  only  his  poems  for  money.  He  meant  to 
make  his  way  buying  his  food  with  a  verse. 
And  he  did  that  very  thing.  But  Markham  had 
a  different  idea,  an  idea  that  all  of  us  need 
scrip  for  that  larger  journey,  scrip  that  is  not 
money  and  scrip  that  does  not  buy  mere  ma- 
terial food,  but  food  for  the  soul.  He  means 
it  to  be  scrip  that  will  help  us  along  the  hard 
way.  And  he  who  has  this  scrip  is  rich  in- 
deed, in  his  inner  life. 

"the  place  of  peace" 
One  would  pay  much  for  peace  at  any  time, 
but  especially  when  one  on  the  journey  of  life 
is  wearied  unto  death  with  sin,  and  bickering, 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         27 

and  trouble  and  hurt  and  pain.  Life  holds  so 
much  heartache  and  heartbreak.  Markham 
has  herein  the  answer : 

"At  the  heart  of  the  cyclone  tearing  the  sky, 
And  flinging  the  clouds  and  the  towers  by, 

Is  a  place  of  central  calm ; 
So  here  in  the  roar  of  mortal  things, 
I  have  a  place  where  my  spirit  sings, 

In  the  hollow  of  God's  palm." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

And  when  we  learn  to  put  our  business  ven- 
tures there  as  Abbey  has  his  Sir  Galahad  do 
in  the  Vigil  panel  of  "The  Search  for  the  Holy 
Grail,"  in  Boston  Library;  and  when  we  have 
learned  to  put  our  homes,  and  our  children, 
and  our  souls  "In  the  hollow  of  God's  palm," 
there  will  be  peace  on  the  journey  of  life.  Yes, 
that  is  good  scrip.- 

"anchored  to  the  infinite" 
What  a  lesson  the  poet  brings  us  from  the 
great  swinging  bridge  at  Niagara,  as  he  tells 
of  the  tiny  thread  that  was  flown  from  a  kite 
from  shore  to  shore;  and  then  a  larger  string, 
and  then  a  heavy  cord,  and  then  a  rope,  and 
finally  the  great  cable,  and  the  mighty  bridge. 
And  this  he  applies  to  life ! 

"So  we  may  send  our  little  timid  thought 
Across  the  void  out  to  God's  reaching  hands — 
Send  out  our  love  and  faith  to  thread  the  deep — 


28  GIANT  HOURS 

Thought  after  thought  until  the  little  cord 
Has  greatened  to  a  chain  no  chance  can  break, 
And — we  are  anchored  to  the  Infinite." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 

Who  does  not  need  to  know  how  simple  a 
thing  will  lead  to  infinite  anchorage?  Who  does 
not  need  to  know  that  just  the  tiny  threads  of 
love  and  faith  will  draw  greater  cords  and 
greater,  stronger  ropes  until  at  last  the  chasm 
between  man  and  God  on  the  journey  is 
bridged,  and  we  may  be  anchored  to  him  for- 
ever. This  indeed  is  good  scrip  for  the  journey 
of  life  Godward. 

"there  is  no  time  for  hate" 

The  world  is  full  of  hate  these  days.  War- 
mad  Germany  produced  'The  Hymn  of  Hate," 
the  lowest  song  that  ever  was  written  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  It  seems  impossible  that 
a  censorship  so  strict  could  ever  let  such  a  mass 
of  mire  out  to  the  world.  But  when  one  reads 
this  Markham  poem,  he  somehow  feels  that  life 
is  so  big,  and  yet  so  brief,  that  even  in  war  we 
are  all  brother-men  and,  as  the  opening  lines 
say, 

"There  is  no  time  for  hate,  O  wasteful  friend : 
Put  hate  away  until  the  ages  end. 
Have  you  an  ancient  wound?    Forget  the  wrong. 
Out  in  my  West,  a  forest  loud  with  song 
Towers  high  and  green  over  a  field  of  snow, 
Over  a  glacier  buried  far  below." 

The  Shoes  of  Happiness. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         29 

And  if  all  the  world  would  learn  the  mean- 
ing of  this  great  phrase,  "There  is  no  time  for 
hate,"  the  world  would  happier  be.  Good 
scrip  for  the  journey?  The  best  there  is,  is 
to  know  "There  is  no  time  for  hate." 


30  GIANT  HOURS 


II 

VACHEL  LINDSAY,  POET  OF  TOWN; 

AND  CITY  TOO' 

A  Study  of  Christian  Influences  in  Village  and 

City;  on  Temperance,  Missions,  and  Races 

VACHEL  LINDSAY  is  not  only  a  poet 
but  he  is  also  a  preacher.  I  do  not 
know  whether  he  is  ordained  or  not,  but 
in  a  leaflet  that  he  recently  sent  me,  he  says, 
"Mr.  Lindsay  offers  the  following  sermons  to 
be  preached  on  short  notice  and  without  a  col- 
lection, in  any  chapel  that  will  open  its  doors 
as  he  passes  by:  'The  Gospel  of  the  Hearth,' 
The  Gospel  of  Voluntary  Poverty,'  The  Holi- 
ness of  Beauty.'  " 

Hife  truly  great  book,  "The  Congo,"  that 
poem  which  so  sympathetically  catches  the 
spirit  of  the  uplift  of  the  Negro  race  through 
Christianity,  that  weird,  musical,  chanting, 
swinging,  singing,  sweeping,  weeping,  rhyth- 
mic, flowing,  swaying,  clanging,  banging, 
leaping,  laughing,  groaning,  moaning  book  of 

'The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission, and  are  taken  from  the  following  works:  The  Congo,  and 
General  William  Booth  Enters  Into  Heaven.  Published  by  the  Mac- 
millan  Company,  New  York. 


VACHEL  LINDSAY 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         31 

the  elementals,  was  inspired  suddenly,  one  Sab- 
bath evening,  as  the  poet  sat  in  church  hsten- 
ing  to  a  returned  missionary  speaking  on  ''The 
Congo."  Nor  a  Poe  nor  a  Lanier  ever  wrote 
more  weirdly  or  more  musically. 

The  poet  himself,  Christian  to  the  bone,  sug- 
gests that  his  poetry  must  be  chanted  to  get  the 
full  sweep  and  beauty.  This  I  have  done,  alone 
by  my  woodfire  of  a  long  California  evening, 
and  have  found  it  strangely,  beautifully,  won- 
derfully full  of  memories  of  church.  I  think 
that  it  is  the  echo  of  old  hymns  that  I  catch  in 
his  poetry.  Biblical  they  are,  in  their  sim- 
plicity, Christian  until  they  drip  with  love. 

Christ  and  the  City  Soul 
I  think  that  no  Christian  poet  has  so  caught 
the  soul  of  the  real  city.  One  phrase  that  links 
Christ  with  the  city  is  the  old-fashioned  yet 
ever  thrilling  phrase,  'The  Soul  of  the  City  Re- 
ceives the  Gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 

An  electrical  sign  suggests  prayer  to  him.  It 
is  a  unique  thought  in  "A  Rhyme  About  An 
Electrical  Advertising  Sign,"  the  lines  of  which 
startle  one  almost  with  their  newness : 

"Some  day  this  old  Broadway  shall  climb  to  the  skies, 
As  a  ribbon  of  cloud  on  a  soul-wind  shall  rise. 
And  we  shall  be  lifted  rejoicing  by  night, 
Till  we  join  with  the  planets  who  choir  their  delight. 


32  GIANT  HOURS 

The  signs  in  the  street  and  the  signs  in  the  skies 
Shall  make  a  new  Zodiac  guiding  the  wise, 
And  Broadway  make  one,  with  that  marvelous  stair 
That  is  climbed  by  the  rainbow-clad  spirits  of  prayer." 

The  Congo. 

He  looks  straight  up  above  the  signs  to 
heaven.  But  he  does  not  forget  to  look  down 
also,  where  the  people  are,  the  folks  that  walk 
and  live  and  crawl  under  the  electric  signs.  In 
''Galahad,  Knight  Who  Perished"  (a  poem 
dedicated  to  all  crusaders  against  the  interna- 
tional and  interstate  traffic  in  young  girls), 
this  phrase  rings  and  rings  its  way  into  Chris- 
tian consciousness : 

"Galahad — knight  who  perished — awaken  again, 
Teach  us  to  fight  for  immaculate  ways  among  men." 

The  Congo. 

And  again  and  again  one  is  rudely  awakened 
irom  his  ease  by  such  lines  as  "The  leaden- 
eyed"  children  of  the  city  which  he  pictures : 

"Not  that  they  starve,  but  starve  so  dreamlessly; 
Not  that  they  sow,  but  that  they  seldom  reap; 
Not  that  they  serve,  but  have  no  gods  to  serve ; 
Not  that  they  die,  but  that  they  die  like  sheep." 

The  Congo. 

Who  has  not  seen  factory  windows  in  village, 
town,  and  city,  and  who  has  not  known  that 
"Factory  windows  are  always  broken"  ?    How 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         33 

this  smacks  of  pall,  and  smoke,  and  dirt,  and 
grind,  and  hurt  and  little  weak  children,  slaves 
of  industry!  Thank  God,  Vachel  Lindsay, 
that  the  Christian  Church  has  found  an  ally 
in  you;  and  poet  and  preacher  together — for 
they  are  both  akin — pray  God  we  may  soon 
abolish  forever  child  slavery.  Yes,  no  wonder 
"Factory  windows  are  always  broken."  The 
children  break  them  because  they  hate  a  prison. 

The  "Coal  Heaver,"  "The  Scissors  Grinder," 
"The  Mendicant,"  "The  Tramp,"  all  so  smack- 
ing of  the  city,  have  their  interpretation. 

I  wish  in  these  pages  might  be  quoted  all  of 
"The  Soul  of  the  City  Receives  the  Gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,"  for  it  daringly,  beautifully,  and 
strongly  carries  into  the  new  philosophy  which 
Mr.  Lindsay  is  introducing  the  thought  that 
every  village,  every  town,  every  city  has  a  com- 
munity soul  that  must  be  saved,  through  Chris- 
tian influence.  But  the  ring  of  it  and  the  swing 
of  it  will  suggest  itself  in  a  few  verses : 

"Censers  are  swinging 

Over  the  town ; 
Censers  are  swinging, 
Look  overhead  1 
Censers  are  swinging, 

Heaven  comes  down. 
City,  dead  city. 
Awake  from  the  dead  I  >^ 


34  GIANT  HOURS 

"Soldiers  of  Christ 

For  battle  grow  keen. 
Heaven-sent  winds 
Haunt  alley  and  lane. 
Singing  of  life 

In  town-meadows  green 
After  the  toil 
And  battle  and  pain. 

"Builders,  toil  on, 
Make  all  complete. 
Make  Springfield  wonderful. 
Make  her  renown 
Worthy  this  day, 

Till  at  God's  feet, 
Tranced,  saved  forever, 
Waits  the  white  town." 

The  Congo. 

Ah,  if  we  could  but  catch  this  vision  of  not 
only  the  individuals  but  the  city  itself  receiving 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  would  have 
therein  a  new  and  a  tremendous  force  for  good. 

One  might  quote  from  *'The  Drunkards  in 
the  Street" : 

"Within  their  gutters,  drunkards  dream  of  Hell. 
I  say  my  prayers  by  my  white  bed  to-night, 
With  the  arms  of  God  about  me,  with  the  angels  singing, 
singing 
Until  the  grayness  of  my  soul  grows  white." 

General  William  Booth. 

He  goes  to  the  bottom  of  the  social  evil,  down 
to  its  economic  causes,  and  blames  the  state  for 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         35 

"The  Trap,"  and  this  strikmg  couplet  rings  in 
one's  heart  long  after  the  book  is  laid  down : 

"In  liberty's  name  we  cry 
For  these  women  about  to  die  1" 

General  William  Booth. 

The  poet  who  speaks  in  "The  City  That  Will 
Not  Repent"  is  only  feeling  over  again,  "O 
Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  .  .  .  how  often  would 
I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a 
hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not!"  The  "Old  Horse  in  the 
City,"  "To  Reformers  in  Despair,"  "The 
Gamblers" — it  is  all  there:  the  heartaches,  the 
struggle  for  existence,  the  fallen  woman,  the 
outcast  man,  the  sound  of  drums,  the  tambour- 
ines, the  singing  of  the  mission  halls.  You  find 
it  all,  especially  in  "General  William  Booth 
Enters  Into  Heaven,"  Here  is  life — the  very 
life  of  life  in  the  city. 

Foreign  Missions 
They  who  have  found  opposition  to  foreign 
missions  will  discover  with  a  thrill  a  new  helper 
in  Poet  Lindsay,  he  who  has  won  the  ear  of 
the  literary  world.  It  is  good  to  hear  one  of  his 
worth,  singing  the  battle  challenge  of  missions, 
just  as  it  is  good  to  hear  him  call  the  modern 
village,  town,  and  city  to  "The  Gift  of  the  Holy 


36  GIANT  HOURS 

Spirit."  "Foreign  Fields  in  Battle  Array" 
brings  this  thrillingly  prophetic,  Isaiahanic 
verse : 

"What  is  the  final  ending? 

The  issue  can  we  know? 
Will  Christ  outlive   Mohammed? 

Will  Kali's  altar  go? 
This  is  our  faith  tremendous — 

Our  wild  hope,  who  shall  scorn — 
That  in  the  name  of  Jesus, 

The  world  shall  be  reborn  !" 

General  William  Booth. 

"Reborn" — does  not  that  phrase  sound  famil- 
iar to  Methodist  ears,  as  does  that  other  phrase, 
"The  Soul  of  the  City  Receives  the  Gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit"  ?  Or,  again,  hear  two  lines  from 
"Star  of  My  Heart": 

"All  hearts  of  the  earth  shall  find  new  birth 
And  wake  no  more  to  sin." 

General  William  Booth. 

Temperance 

In  these  days,  when  the  world  is  being  swept 
clean  with  the  besom  of  temperance,  the  poet 
who  sings  the  song  of  temperance  is  the  "poet 
that  sings  to  battle."  Lindsay  has  done  this 
in  some  lines  in  his  "General  William  Booth 
Enters  Into  Heaven,"  which  he  admits  having 
written  while  a  field  worker  in  the  Anti-Saloon 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         37 

League  in  Illinois.    At  the  end  of  each  verse 
we  have  one  of  these  three  couplets : 

"But  spears  are  set,  the  charge  is  on, 
Wise  Arthur  shall  be  King!" 

"Fierce  Cromwell  builds  the  flower-bright  towns 
And  a  more  sunlit  land;" 

and, 

"Our  God  establishes  his  arm 
And  makes  the  battle  sure  1" 

General  William  Booth. 

He  puts  the  temperance  worker  in  the 
"Round  Table"  under  the  heading,  "King 
Arthur's  Men  Have  Come  Again."  He  lifts 
the  battle  to  a  high  realm.  "To  go  about  re- 
dressing human  wrongs,"  as  King  Arthur's 
Knights  were  sworn  to  do,  would  certainly  be 
a  most  appropriate  motto  for  the  modern  Chris- 
tian temperance  worker,  and  Lindsay  is  the 
only  poet  acknowledged  by  the  literary  world 
who  has  sung  this  Galahad's  praise  with  keen 
insight. 

But  his  greatest  poem,  "The  Congo,"  that 
poem  which  has  captured  the  imagination  of 
the  literary  world  and  which  is  so  little  known 
to  the  Christian  world — where  it  ought  to  be 
known  best  of  all — will  give  a  glimpse  of  the 
new  Christian  influence  on  the  races.  The  poet 
suggests  that  it  be  chanted  to  the  tune  of 


38  GIANT  HOURS 

the  old  hymn,  "Hark,  ten  thousand  harps  and 
voices." 

It  is  a  strange  poem.  It  is  so  new  that  it  is 
starthng,  but  it  has  won.  Listen  to  its  strange 
swing,  and  see  its  stranger  pictures.  Through 
the  thin  veneer  of  a  new  civiHzation,  back  of 
the  Christianized  Negro  race,  the  poet  sees, 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  missionary  sermon 
dehvered  in  a  modern  church,  the  race  that 
was: 

"Fat  black  bucks  in  a  wine-barrel  room, 

Barrel-house  kings  with  feet  unstable, 

Sagged  and  reeled  and  pounded  on  the  table, 

Pounded  on  the  table, 
Beat  an  empty  barrel  with  the  handle  of  a  broom, 

Hard  as  they  were  able, 
Boom,  boom,  BOOM 

With  a  silk  umbrella,  and  the  handle  of  a  broom, 
Boomlay,  boomlay,  boom.lay,  BOOM 
Then  I  had  religion,  then  I  had  a  vision. 
I  could  not  turn  from  their  revel  in  derision. 
THEN    I     SAW    THE    CONGO     CREEPING 

THROUGH  THE  BLACK, 
CUTTING  THROUGH  THE  FORESTS  WITH 

A  GOLDEN  TRACK!" 

The  Congo. 

Then  follows  as  vital,  vivid,  and  vigorous  a 
description  as  ever  was  written  by  pen,  inspired 
of  God,  tipped  with  fire,  of  the  uplift  and  re- 
demption of  the  Negro  race,  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  "General  William  Booth"  title  poem  to 


I 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         39 

the  second  Lindsay  book  shook  the  literary 
world  awake  with  its  perfect  interpretation  of 
The  Salvation  Army  leader.  It  is  a  poem  to 
be  chanted  at  first  with  "Bass  drums  beaten 
loudly"  and  then  "with  banjos";  then  softly 
with  "sweet  flute  music,"  and  finally,  as  the 
great  General  comes  face  to  face  with  Christ, 
with  a  "Grand  chorus  of  all  instruments ;  tam- 
bourines to  the  foreground."  Running  through 
this  poem  is  the  refrain  of  "Are  you  washed  in 
the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ?"  and  the  last  lines  catch 
the  tender,  yet  absolutely  unique  spirit  of  the 
entire  poem  : 

"And  when  Booth  halted  by  the  curb  for  prayer 
He  saw  his  Master  thro'  the  flag-filled  air. 
Christ  came  gently  with  a  robe  and  crown 
For  Booth  the  soldier,  while  the  throng  knealt  down. 
He  saw  King  Jesus.    They  were  face  to  face, 
And  he  knealt  a-weeping  in  that  holy  place, 
Are  you  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb?" 

General  William  Booth. 

But  one  could  not  get  Lindsay  to  the  hearts 
of  folks,  one  could  not  make  the  picture  com- 
plete, without  putting  Lincoln  in,  any  more 
than  he  could  make  Lindsay  complete  without 
putting  into  these  pages  "The  Soul  of  the  City 
Receives  the  Gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  or  "Gen- 
eral William  Booth  Enters  Into  Heaven,"  or 
"The  Congo."    Lincoln  seems  to  be  as  much  a 


40  GIANT  HOURS 

part  of  Lindsay  as  he  is  a  part  of  Springfield. 
Lindsay  and  Lincoln,  to  those  who  love  both, 
mean  Springfield,  and  Springfield  means  Lin- 
coln and  Lindsay.  And  what  Lindsay  is  trying 
to  do  for  city,  for  village,  for  town,  for  the 
Negro,  for  every  human  being,  is  voiced  in  his 
poem,  ''Lincoln." 

"Would  I  might  rouse  the  Lincoln  in  you  all, 
That  which  is  gendered  in  the  wilderness, 
From  lonely  prairies  and  God's  tenderness." 

General  William  Booth. 

Let  this  poem  ''Heart  of  God"  be  the  bene- 
diction of  this  chapter  on  Lindsay: 

"O  great  heart  of  God, 

Once  vague  and  lost  to  me, 
Why  do  I  throb  with  your  throb  to-night, 
In  this  land,  eternity? 

"O,  little  heart  of  God, 

Sweet  intruding  stranger, 
You  are  laughing  in  my  human  breast, 
A  Christ-child  in  a  manger. 

"Heart,  dear  heart  of  God, 
Beside  you  now  I  kneel, 
Strong  heart  of  faith.     O  heart  not  mine. 
Where  God  has  set  His  seal. 

"Wild,  thundering  heart  of  God, 

Out  of  my  doubt  I  come. 
And  my  foolish  feet  with  prophets'  feet 
March  with  the  prophets'  drum!" 

General  William  Booth. 


^ 

M 

-♦»J 

^J 

ii/ 

L 

^, 

wm 

*  > . 

"^mL 

^^^ 

JOAQUIN  MILLER 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         41 

HI 

JOAQUIN  MILLERS 

A  Study  of  Home,  Father  Love,  Great  Moments 
WITH  Jesus  Christ,  Heaven,  and  God 

IT  was  a  warm,  sunny  May  California  day; 
and  the  day  stands  out,  even  above  Cali- 
fornia days.  A  climb  up  the  Piedmont 
hills  back  of  Oakland,  California,  brought  us 
to  "The  Heights,"  the  unique  home  of  Joaquin 
Miller,  poet  of  the  West  and  poet  of  the  world. 

A  visit  to  the  homes  of  the  New  England 
poets  is  always  interesting  because  of  historic 
and  literary  associations,  but  none  of  them  has 
the  touch  of  the  unique  personality  of  Miller. 

Most  people  interested  in  things  literary 
know  that  Miller,  with  a  great  desire  to  empha- 
size the  freedom  of  the  individual,  built  a  half 
dozen  separate  houses,  one  for  himself,  one  for 
his  wife,  one  for  his  daughter  Juanita,  several 
for  guests  from  all  over  the  world  who  were 
always  visiting  him,  and  a  little  chapel.  Lit- 
erary men  from  every  nation  on  the  planet 

^The  quotations  from  the  poems  of  Joaquin  Miller  appearing  in 
this  chapter  are  used  by  permission  of  the  Harr  Wagner  Publishing 
Company,   owners  of  copyright. 


42  GIANT  HOURS 

visited  Miller  at  "The  Heights."  Most  people 
interested  knew  also  that  Miller,  with  his  own 
hands,  had  built  monuments  of  stone  to  Fre- 
mont, the  explorer,  to  Moses,  and  to  Browning. 
There  was  also  a  granite  funeral  pyre  for  him- 
self, within  sight  of  the  little  ''God's  Acre,"  in 
which  he  had  buried  some  eighteen  or  twenty 
outcasts  and  derelicts  of  earth  who  had  no 
other  plot  to  call  their  own  in  which  to  take 
their  last  long  sleep. 

We  expected  to  find  this  strange  group  of 
buildings  deserted,  but  after  inspecting  the 
chapel,  which  was  modeled  after  Newstead 
Abbey,  and  after  rambling  through  the  old- 
fashioned  garden  that  Miller  himself  had 
planted — a  garden  with  a  perfect  riot  of  colors 
— suddenly  a  little  woman  with  a  sweet  face 
walked  up  to  us  out  of  the  bushes  and  said, 
''Are  you  lovers  of  the  poet?" 

I  humbly  replied  that  we  were.  Then  she 
said:  "I  am  Mrs.  Miller,  and  you  are  welcome. 
When  you  have  looked  around,  come  into  Mr. 
Miller's  own  room  and  be  refreshed.  After 
that  I  will  read  to  you  from  his  writings." 

It  sounded  stagey  at  first,  but  the  more  we 
knew  of  this  sweet-faced  widow  of  the  poet  the 
less  we  found  about  her  that  was  not  simple 
and  sweet  and  natural. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         43 

After  wandering  around,  through  the  fas- 
cinating paths,  under  the  great  cross  of  a  thou- 
sand pine  trees,  among  the  roses,  and  flowers 
that  he  had  planted  with  his  own  hands,  we 
came  at  last  to  the  little  house  that  Mrs.  Miller 
had  called  "The  poet's  own  room,"  and  there 
were  we  refreshed  with  cool  lemonade  and 
cakes.  In  the  littleness  of  my  soul  I  wondered 
when  we  were  to  pay  for  these  favors,  but  the 
longer  we  remained  the  more  was  I  shamed  as 
I  saw  that  this  hospitality  was  just  the  natural 
expression  of  a  woman,  and  a  beautiful 
daughter's  desire  to  extend  the  hospitality  of 
the  dead  poet  himself,  to  any  who  loved  his 
writings. 

There  was  the  bed  on  which  Miller  lay  for 
months  writing  many  of  his  greatest  poems,  in- 
cluding the  famous  ''Columbus."  There  was 
his  picturesque  sombrero,  still  hanging  where 
he  had  put  it  last  on  the  post  of  the  great  bed. 
His  pen  was  at  hand ;  his  writing  pad,  his  chair, 
his  great  fur  coat,  his  handkerchief  of  many 
colors  which  in  life  he  always  wore  about  his 
neck ;  his  great  heavy,  high-topped  boots.  And 
it  was  sunset. 

Then  Mrs.  Miller  began  to  read.  As  the 
slanting  rays  of  as  crimson  a  sunset  as  God 
ever  painted  were  falling  through  the  great 


44  GIANT  HOURS 

cross  of  pine  trees,  Mrs.  Miller's  dramatic, 
sweet,  sympathetic  voice  interpreted  his  poems 
for  us.  I  sat  on  the  bed  from  which  Miller  had, 
just  a  few  months  previous  to  that,  heard  the 
great  call.  The  others  sat  in  his  great  rockers. 
Mrs.  Miller  stood  as  she  read.  I  am  sure  that 
"Columbus"  will  never  be  lifted  into  the  sub- 
lime as  it  was  when  she  read  it  that  late  May 
afternoon,  with  its  famous,  and  thrilling  phrase 
"Sail  on!    Sail  on!    And  on!    And  on!" 

A  Study  of  Home 

I  had  thought  before  hearing  Mrs.  Miller 
read  "The  Greatest  Battle  that  Ever  was 
Fought"  that  I  had  caught  all  the  subtle  mean- 
ings of  it,  but  after  her  reading  that  great 
tribute  to  womanhood  I  knew  that  I  had  never 
dreamed  the  half  of  its  inner  meaning : 

"The  greatest  battle  that  ever  was  fought — 
Shall  I  tell  you  where  and  when? 
On  the  maps  of  the  world  you  will  find  it  not : 
It  was  fought  by  the  Mothers  of  Men. 

"Not  with  cannon  or  battle  shot, 
With  sword  or  nobler  pen ; 
Not  with  eloquent  word  or  thought 
From  the  wonderful  minds  of  men; 

"But  deep  in  a  walled  up  woman's  heart ; 

A  woman  that  would  not  yield ; 
But  bravely  and  patiently  bore  her  part; 
Lo!  there  is  that  battlefield. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         45 

"No  marshaling  troops,  no  bivouac  song, 

No  banner  to  gleam  and  wave ; 
But  Oh  these  battles  they  last  so  long — 
From  babyhood  to  the  grave  1 

"But  faithful  still  as  a  bridge  of  stars 
She  fights  in  her  walled  up  town ; 
Fights  on,  and  on,  in  the  endless  wars; 
Then  silent,  unseen  goes  down  1 

"Ho!  ye  with  banners  and  battle  shot. 

With  soldiers  to  shout  and  praise, 
I  tell  you  the  kingliest  victories  fought 
Are  fought  in  these  silent  ways." 


Then,  as  if  to  give  us  another  illustration  of 
her  great  poet  husband's  home  love,  she  read 
for  us  "Ju^i^ita" : 

"You  will  come,  my  bird,  Bonita? 

Come,  for  I  by  steep  and  stone. 
Have  built  such  nest,  for  you,  Juanita, 
As  not  eagle  bird  hath  known. 

All  is  finished!    Roads  of  flowers 

Wait  your  loyal  little  feet. 
All  completed?    Nay,  the  hours 

Till  you  come  are  incomplete  1" 

Who  that  hath  the  blessing  of  little  children 
will  not  understand  this  waiting,  yearning  love 
of  Miller  for  his  ten-year-old  girl,  who  was 
at  that  time  in  New  York  with  her  mother  wait- 
ing until  "The  Heights"  should  be  finished? 


46  GIANT  HOURS 

Who  does  not  understand  how  incomplete  the 
hours  were  until  she  came? 

"You  will  come,  my  dearest,  truest? 
Come,  my  iovereign  queen  of  ten: 
My  blue  sky  will  then  be  bluest; 
My  white  rose  be  whitest  then." 

Great  Moments  with  Christ 

Miller  had  a  profound,  deep,  sincere  love  for 
Christ,  and  more  than  any  poet  I  know  did  he 
express  with  deep  insight  and  with  deeper 
sweetness  the  great  moments  in  Christ's  life. 
He  made  these  great  moments  human.  He 
brings  them  near  to  us,  so  that  we  see  them 
more  clearly.  He  makes  them  warm  our  hearts, 
and  we  feel  that  Christ's  words  are  truly  our 
words  in  this,  our  own  day.  In  that  great 
scene  where  Christ  blessed  little  children,  who 
has  ever  made  it  sweeter  and  nearer  and 
warmer  with  human  touch? 

"Then  reaching  his  hands,  he  said,  lowly, 

'Of  such  is  my  Kingdom,'  and  then 
Took  the  little  brown  babes  in  the  holy 
White  hands  of  the  Saviour  of  Men; 

"Held  them  close  to  his  heart  and  caressed  them. 
Put  his  face  down  to  theirs  as  in  prayer, 
Put  their  hands  to  his  neck  and  so  blessed  them 
With  baby-hands  hid  in  his  hair." 

The  scene  with  the  woman  taken  in  adultery 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         47 

he  has  also  made  human  and  near  in  these  Hnes, 
called  "Charity": 

"Who  now  shall  accuse  and  arraign  us? 
What  man  shall  condemn  and  disown? 
Since  Christ  has  said  only  the  stainless 
Shall  cast  at  his  fellows  a  stone?" 

That  Jesus  Christ  died  for  the  world,  that 
Calvary  had  more  meaning  for  humanity  than 
anything  else  that  has  ever  happened,  Miller 
put  in  four  lines : 

"Look  starward !  stand  far,  and  unearthy, 
Free  souled  as  a  banner  unfurled. 
Be  worthy  1  O,  brother,  be  worthy ! 
For  a  God  was  the  price  of  the  world!" 

He  caught  Christ's  teaching,  and  the  whole 
gist  of  the  New  Testament  expressed  in  that 
immortal  phrase  "Judge  not,"  and  he  wrote 
some  lines  that  have  been  on  the  lips  of  man 
the  world  over,  and  shall  continue  to  be  as  long 
as  men  speak  poetry.  A  unique  pleasure  was 
mine  on  this  afternoon.  I  had  noticed  some- 
thing that  Mrs.  Miller  had  not  noticed  in  this 
great  poem.    She  quoted  it  to  us : 

"In  men  whom  men  condemn  as  ill 
I  find  so  much  of  goodness  still ; 
In  men  whom  men  pronounce  Divine 

I  find  so  much  of  sin  and  blot, 
I  hesitate  to  draw  the  line 

Between  the  two,  where  God  has  notl" 


48  GIANT  HOURS 

Miller  wrote  it  that  way  when  he  first  wrote 
it,  in  his  younger  days.  It  was  natural  for 
Mrs.  Miller  to  quote  it  that  way.  But  I  had 
discovered  in  his  revised  and  complete  poems 
that  he  had  changed  a  significant  phrase  in  that 
great  verse.  He  had  said,  "I  do  not  dare," 
in  the  fifth  line,  instead  of  "I  hesitate."  His 
mature  years  had  made  him  say,  "I  do  not  dare 
to  draw  the  line !" 

God  and  Heaven 

He  knew  that  heaven  and  God  were  near  to 
humanity  and  earth.  He  was  not  afraid  of 
death.  He  teaches  us  all  Christian  courage  in 
this  line  of  thought.  He  knew  that  his  "Greek 
Heights"  were  very  near  to  heaven  because  he 
knew  that  anywhere  is  near  to  heaven  to  the 
believer : 

"Be  this  my  home  till  some  fair  star 

Stoops  earthward  and  shall  beckon  me; 
For  surely  God-land  lies  not  far 

From  these  Greek  Heights  and  this  great  sea!" 

He  yearned  to  teach  men  to  believe  in  this 
God  and  his  nearness ;  this  God  in  whom  he  be- 
lieved with  all  his  heart.  This  cry  out  of  his 
soul,  written  just  a  few  days  before  his  death, 
is  like  Tennyson's  "Crossing  The  Bar"  in  that 
it  was  his  swan  song: 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         49 

"Could  I  but  teach  man  to  believe, 

Could  I  but  make  small  men  to  grow, 
To  break  frail  spider  webs  that  weave 

About  their  thews  and  bind  them  low. 
Could  I  but  sing  one  song  and  lay 

Grim  Doubt ;  I  then  could  go  my  way 
In  tranquil  silence,  glad,  serene, 
And  satisfied  from  off  the  scene. 

But  Ah  I  this  disbelief,  this  doubt. 
This  doubt  of  God,  this  doubt  of  God 

The  damned  spot  will  not  out! 
Wouldst  learn  to  know  one  little  flower, 

Its  perfume,  perfect  form,  or  hue? 
Yea,  wouldst  thou  have  one  perfect  hour 

Of  all  the  years  that  come  to  you? 
Then  grow  as  God  hath  planted,  grow 
A  lovely  oak,  or  daisy  low. 
As  he  hath  set  his  garden ;  be 
Just  what  thou  art,  or  grass  or  tree. 

Thy  treasures  up  in  heaven  laid 
Await  thy  sure  ascending  soul : 

Life  after  life — be  not  afraid  I" 


Yes,  Miller  believed  in  home,  in  Christ,  and 
God  and  immortality.  He  believed  that  heaven 
and  God  were  near  to  man,  and  in  his  last  days 
there  was  no  doubt.  Thus  his  own  writings 
confirm  what  Mrs.  Miller,  on  that  memorable 
afternoon,  made  certain  by  her  warm,  tear-wet, 
personal  testimony.  And  as  she  quoted  these 
last  lines,  and  the  sun  had  set  behind  the  Golden 
Gate,  which  we  could  even  then  see  from  the 
room  in  which  we  sat,  we  felt  as  though  Miller 
himself  were  near,  listening  as  she  read,  listen- 


50  GIANT  HOURS 

ing  with  us.  And  these  are  the  last  verses 
that  she  quoted,  which  seem  fit  verses  with 
which  to  close  this  chapter  study  of  Joaquin 
Miller : 

"I  will  ray  ashes  to  my  steeps, 

I  will  my  steeps,  green  cross,  red  rose, 
To  those  who  love  the  beautiful, 
Come,  learn  to  be  of  those." 

And  is  it  any  wonder  that,  as  we  sat  in  the 
twilight  listening  to  that  invitation  to  his  home, 
these  words  made  the  red  roses  and  the  green 
cross  of  Christ  against  the  hill  our  very  own? 
And  is  it  any  wonder  that,  as  she  quoted  these 
last  verses  we  felt  him  near  to  us  ? 

"Enough  to  know  that  I  and  you 
Shall  breathe  together  there  as  here 
Some  clearer,  sweeter  atmosphere, 
Shall  walk,  high,  wider  ways  above 
Our  petty  selves,  shall  learn  to  lead 
Man  up  and  up  in  thought  and  deed. 


and, 


"Come  here  when  I  am  far  away. 
Fond  lovers  of  this  lovely  land. 

And  sit  quite  still  and  do  not  say, 
'Turn  right  or  left  and  lend  a  hand,' 

But  sit  beneath  my  kindly  trees 

And  gaze  far  out  yon  sea  of  seas. 
These  trees,  these  very  stones  could  tell 
How  much  I  loved  them  and  how  well. 

And  maybe  I  shall  come  and  sit 
Beside  you ;  sit  so  silently 

You  will  not  reck  of  it." 


ALAN  SEEGER 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         51 


IV 

ALAN  SEEGER^ 

Poet  of  Youth,  Beauty,  Fame,  Joy,  Love, 
Death,  and  God 

RUPERT  BROOKE  and  Alan  Seeger— 
so  shall  their  names  be  linked  together 
forever  by  those  who  love  poetry.  In 
the  first  place,  they  were  much  alike:  buoyant, 
young;  loving  life,  living  life;  and  both  dying 
for  the  great  cause  of  humanity  in  the  world's 
greatest  war.  Brooke  the  Englishman ;  Seeger 
the  American;  so  are  they  linked.  Both  were 
but  lads  in  their  twenties;  both  vivid  as  light- 
ning and  as  warm  as  summer  sunshine  in  their 
personalities;  both  truly  great  poets,  who  had, 
even  in  the  short  time  they  lived,  run  a  wide 
gamut  of  poetic  expression. 

I  am  not  saying  that  either  Brooke  or  Seeger 
may  be  called  a  Christian  poet ;  nor  am  I  saying 
that  they  may  not  be  called  that.  This  war  in 
which  they  have  given  their  lives  will  make  a 

^The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission, and  are  taken  from  poems  by  Alan  Seeger.  Published  by 
Charles   Scribner's   Sons,    New   York. 


52  GIANT  HOURS 

vast  difference  in  the  definition  of  what  a  Chris- 
tian is.  I  can  detect  no  orthodox  Christian 
message  in  either  of  their  dreamings,  but  I  do 
find  in  both  poets  a  clean,  high  moral  message, 
and  therefore  give  them  place  in  this  pulpit  of 
the  poets. 

The  wide  range  of  this  young  American's 
writing  astonishes  the  reader.  He  died  very 
young:  while  the  morning  sun  was  just  lifting 
its  head  above  the  eastern  horizon  of  life ;  while 
the  heav-ens  were  still  crimson,  and  gold,  and 
rose,  and  fire.  What  he  might  have  written  in 
the  steady  white  heat  of  noontime  and  in  life's 
glorious  afternoon  of  experience,  and  in  its 
subtle  charm  of  "sunset  and  the  evening  star," 
one  can  only  guess.  But  while  he  lived  he 
lived;  and,  living,  wrote.  He  dipped  his  pen  in 
that  same  gold  and  fire  of  the  only  part  of  life 
he  knew,  its  daybreak,  and  wrote.  No  wonder 
his  writing  was  warm ;  no  wonder  he  wrote  of 
Youth,  Beauty,  Fame,  Joy,  Love,  Death,  and 
God. 

The  Song  of  Youth 

Nor  Byron,  nor  Shelley,  nor  Keats,  nor 
Swinburne,  nor  Brooke,  nor  any  other  poet 
ever  sounded  the  heights  and  depths  and  glory 
of  Youth  as  did  Seeger.     He  sang  it  as  he 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         53 

breathed  it  and  lived  it,  and  just  as  naturally. 
His  singing  of  it  was  as  rhythmic'as  breathing, 
and  as  sweet  as  the  first  song  of  an  oriole  in 
springtime.  In  his  fifth  sonnet,  a  form  in 
which  he  loved  to  write  and  of  which  he  was  a 
master,  he  sings  youth  in  terms  "almost  di- 
vine" : 

"Phantoms  of  bliss  that  beckon  and  recede — , 
Thy  strange  allurements,  City  that  I  love, 
Maze  of  romance,  where  I  have  followed  too 
The  dream  Youth  treasures  of  its  dearest  need 
And  stars  beyond  thy  towers  bring  tidings  of." 

Poems   by   Alan   Seeger. 

He  loved  New  York;  he  loved  Paris;  he 
loved  any  city  because  youth  and  life  and  ro- 
mance and  love  were  there.  He  drank  all  of 
these  into  his  soul  like  a  thirsty  desert  drinks 
rain;  to  spring  to  flowers  and  life  and  color 
again.  He  drank  of  life  and  youth  as  a  flower 
drinks  of  dew,  or  a  bird  at  a  city  fountain,  with 
fluttering  joy,  drinks,  singing  as  it  drinks. 
You  feel  all  of  that  eagerness  in  "Sonnet  VI" 
where  he  says: 

"Where  I  drank  deep  the  bliss  of  being  young, 
The  strife  and  sweet  potential  flux  of  things 
I  sought  Youth's  dream  of  happiness  among!" 

Poems   by  Alan   Seeger. 

The  Song  of  Beauty 
And  closely  akin  to  Youth  always  is  Beauty. 


54  GIANT  HOURS 

Beauty  and  Youth  walk  arm  in  arm  every- 
where, and  one  may  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
anywhere.  lYouth  cares  not  where  he  goes  as 
long  as  Beauty  walks  beside  him.  He  will 
walk  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Indeed,  he  pre- 
fers the  long  way  home.  Anybody  who  has 
known  both  Youth  and  Beauty  knows  this,  and 
it  need  not  be  argued  about  much,  thank  God. 
And  so  it  is  most  natural  to  find  this  young 
poet  singing  the  lyric  of  Beauty  even  as  he 
sings  the  lyric  of  Youth.  How  understand- 
ingly  he  addresses  Beauty,  and  how  reverently 
in  *'An  Ode  to  Natural  Beauty"! 

"Spirit  of  Beauty,  whose  sweet  impulses, 
Flung  like  the  rose  of  dawn  across  the  sea. 
Alone  can  flush  the  exalted  consciousness 
With  shafts  of  sensible  divinity, 
Light  of  the  World,  essential  loveliness." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

Then,  talking  about  the  "Wanderer"  as 
though  that  character  were  some  far  off  person 
no  kin  to  the  poet  (a  way  that  poets  have  to 
hide  the  pulsing  of  their  own  hearts),  Seeger 
writes  of  Beauty.  But  we  who  know  him  can- 
not be  made  to  think  that  this  ''Wanderer"  is 
a  fellow  we  do  not  .know;  "nor  Launcelot,  nor 
another."  It  is  he,  the  poet  of  whom  we  write. 
It  bears  his  imprint.    It  bears  his  trade  mark. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         55 

It  is  stamped  ''with  the  image  of  the  king." 
He  cannot  hide  from  us  in  this : 

"His  heart  the  love  of  Beauty  held  as  hides 
One  gem  most  pure  a  casket  of  pure  gold. 
It  was  too  rich  a  lesser  thing  to  hold ; 
It  was  not  large  enough  for  aught  besides." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

The  Song  of  Fame 

Fame  always  lures  Youth.  Perhaps  later 
experience  proves  that  it  is  indeed  a  hollow 
thing,  hardly  worth  striving  for.  But  to  Youth 
there  is  no  goal  that  calls  more  insistently  than 
Fame.  Youth  and  Beauty  and  Fame — how 
closely  akin  they  are!  If  Beauty  and  Fame 
keep  him  company,  Youth  is  next  the  stars  with 
delight.  And  so  it  is  natural  that  this  young 
poet  shall  sing  the  song  of  Fame  with  exuber- 
ant enthusiasm.  He  says  in  "The  Need  to 
Love": 

"And  I  have  followed  Fame  with  less  devotion, 
And  kept  no  real  ambition  but  to  see 
Rise  from  the  foam  of  Nature's  sunlit  ocean 
My  dream  of  palpable  divinity." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

And  while  we  are  listening  to  the  music  of 
these  human  stars,  the  music  of  the  celestial 
spheres  set  down  in  human  words,  let  us  catch 
again  the  poetic  echo  of  that  third  line  and  let 


56  GIANT  HOURS 

it  linger  long  as  we  listen,  "Rise  from  the  foam 
of  Nature's  sunlit  ocean,"  and 

"Forget  it  not  till  the  crowns  are  crumbled, 

Till  the  swords  of  the  kings  are  rent  with  rust; 
Forget  it  not  till  the  hills  lie  humbled, 
And  the  Springs  of  the  seas  run  dust," 

that,  as  EUwin  Markham  sings,  this  echo  is  the 
echo  of  the  eternal  poetic  music. 

With  these  wondrous  lines  he  answers  the 
question  which  he  himself  asks  in  "Fragments," 
"What  is  Success?" 

"Out  of  the  endless  ore 
Of  deep  desire  to  coin  the  utmost  gold 
Of  passionate  memory :  to  have  lived  so  well 
That  the  fifth  moon,  when  it  swims  up  once  more 
Through  orchard  boughs  where  mating  orioles  build 
And  apple  trees  unfold, 

Find  not  of  that  dear  need  that  all  things  tell 
The  heart  unburdened  nor  the  arms  unfilled." 

Poems  by  Alan    Seeger. 

Joy  comes  next  in  our  treatment  of  the  out- 
standing singings  of  this  singing  poet,  and  he 
himself  has  given  us  the  connecting  Hnk  in  the 
following  lines : 

"He  has  drained  as  well 
Joy's  perfumed  bowl  and  cried  as  I  have  cried: 
Be  Fame  their  mistress  whom  Love  passes  by." 

Poems   by  Alan   Seeger. 

And  thus  smoothly  we  pass  from  Fame  to 
Joy  and  hear  him  sing  of  this  fourth  high  peak 
of  Youth. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         57 

The  Song  of  Joy 
Whatever  he  did,  whatever  he  sang,  what- 
ever he  hved,  this  man  swept  all  things  else 
aside  and  plunged  in  over  head.  He  loved  to 
swim  and  he  loved  to  dive.  Perhaps  into  his 
living  and  his  writing  he  carried  this  athletic 
joy  also,  and  as  he  lived  he  lived  to  the  full.  It 
seems  so  as  one  reads  in  "I  Loved"  these  im- 
passioned lines : 

"From  a  boy 
I  gloated  on  existence.    Earth  to  me 
Seemed  all  sufficient  and  my  sojourn  there 
One  trembling  opportunity  for  joy." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

And  then  one  pauses  to  weep  awhile,  and  the 
lines  grow  dim  as  he  reads  them  again  to  know 
that  this  man,  who  so  loved  to  live,  who  gloated 
on  existence,  who  saw  life  as  a  trembling  op- 
portunity for  Joy,  must  leave  it  so  soon.  And 
yet  he  left  it  nobly.  Again  in  *'An  Ode  to 
Antares"  he  sings  of  Joy: 

"What  clamor  importuning  from  every  booth ! 
At  Earth's  great  market  where  Joy  is  trafficked  in 
Buy  while  thy  purse  yet  swells  with  golden  Youth !" 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

Kindly  Age,  Age  who  had  not  lost  his  love, 
always  sings  like  that  to  Youth;  always  tells 
Youth  to  live  while  he  may,  play  while  the  play- 


58  GIANT  HOURS 

world  is  his.  Every  poet  who  has  older  grown, 
from  Shakespeare  to  Lowell,  and  yet  retained 
his  love,  has  told  us  this.  We  expect  it  of  older 
poets,  but  here  a  young  poet  sees  it  all  clearly ; 
that  Youth  must  buy  Joy  while  his  purse  is  full 
with  Youth.  And  ye  who  rob  Youth  of  play- 
time, of  Joy,  ye  capitalists,  ye  money  makers 
and  life  destroyers,  listen  to  this  dead  poet  who 
yet  lives  in  these  words.  Fathers,  mothers,  let 
childhood  spend  its  all  for  Joy  while  the  purse 
of  Youth  is  full.  It  will  be  empty  afterwhile 
and  it  shall  never  be  filled  again  with  Youth. 
So  says  the  Poet. 

The  Song  of  Love 

The  discriminating  reader  of  Seeger  soon 
sees,  however,  that,  while  he  sings  as  needs  he 
must,  because  of  the  springs  that  are  within 
him  bubbling  over,  sings  of  Youth,  and  Beauty, 
and  Fame,  and  Joy,  yet  he  knows  that  these  are 
not  all  of  life.  He  knows  that  there  are  higher 
things  than  these.  These  higher  things  are 
Love,  Death,  God — what  a  trilogy ! 

Love  is  all.  He  is  sure  of  this.  He  is  true 
to  this.  Romantic  love  he  knows — love  of  com- 
rade, love  of  God.  In  this  same  "An  Ode  to 
Natural  Beauty"  his  final  conclusion  is  that 
Love  is  best  after  all : 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         59 

"On  any  venture  set,  but  'twas  the  first 
For  Beauty  willed  them,  yea  whatever  be 
The  faults  I  wanted  wings  to  rise  above; 
I  am  cheered  yet  to  think  how  steadfastly 
I  have  been  loyal  to  the  love  of  Love!" 

Poems   by  Alan   Seeger. 

This  is  more  than  romantic  love;  it  is  the 
"love  of  Love." 

And  lest  this  be  not  strong  enough,  he  sings 
in  "The  Need  to  Love"  as  great  a  song  as  man 
ever  heard  on  this  great  theme: 

"The  need  to  love  that  all  the  stars  obey 

Entered  my  heart  and  banished  all  beside. 
Bare  were  the  gardens  where  I  used  to  stray ; 
Faded  the  flowers  that  one  time  satisfied." 

Poems  by  Alan  Seeger. 

Then,  not  content,  he  sets  up  an  altar  of 
poetry  and  dedicates  it  to  Love  and  lights  a  fire 
of  worship  there,  and  leaves  it  not,  nor  night 
nor  day : 

"All  that's  not  love  is  the  dearth  of  my  days, 

The  leaves  of  the  volume  with  rubric  unwrit, 
The  temple  in  times  without  prayer,  without  praise, 
The  altar  unset  and  the  candle  unlit." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

If  Love  be  not  queen  to  him,  the  palace  is 
cold  and  barren ;  the  "altar  unset  and  the  candle 
unlit." 

The  Song  of  Death 

Like  Brooke,  a  victim  of  the  Hun,  so  Seeger, 
also  a  victim  of  the  barbarian,  seemed  to  feel 


6o  GIANT  HOURS 

the  constant  presence  of  Death,  an  unseen 
guest  at  the  Feast  of  Youth  and  Joy  and  Fame 
and  Love.  Perhaps  the  war  made  these  two 
imaginative  poets  think  of  Death  sooner  than 
Youth  usually  gives  him  heed.  But  most  men 
will  think  of  Death  when  they  are  face  to  face 
with  the  shadow  day  and  night  as  were  these 
soldier-crusading  poets;  when  they  see  him 
stalking  in  every  trench,  in  every  wood,  on 
every  hill  and  road,  and  in  every  field  and  vil- 
lage.    But  how  bravely  he  spoke  of  Death! — 

"Learn  to  drive  fear,  then,  from  your  heart. 

If  you  must  perish,  know,  O  man, 
'Tis  an  inevitable  part 
Of  the  predestined  plan." 

Poems   by  Alan   Seeger. 

And  again  in  this  same  poem,  "Makatoob," 
he  sings  of  Death : 

"Guard  that,  not  bowed  nor  blanched  with   fear 

You  enter,  but  serene,  erect. 
As  you  would  wish  most  to  appear 
To  those  you  most  respect. 

"So  die,  as  though  your  funeral 

Ushered  you  through  the  doors  that  led 
Into  a  stately  banquet  hall 
Where  heroes  banqueted ; 

"And  it  shall  all  depend  therein 

Whether  you  come  as  slave  or  lord, 
If  they  acclaim  you  as  their  kin 
Or  spurn  you  from  their  board." 

Poems   by  Alan    Seeger. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         6i 

What  a  challenge  this  is  to  all  who  must  die 
in  this  war,  to  all  lads  who  are  giving  their 
lives  heroically  in  God's  great  cause  of  liberty 
in  his  world — this  challenge  to  die  so  that 
you  may  be  welcomed  into  the  fraternity  of 
heroes ! 

Without  doubt  Seeger's  best-known  poem, 
and  one  which  illustrates  also  most  strongly 
his  attitude  toward  Death,  is  that  poem  entitled 
"I  Have  a  Rendezvous  With  Death,"  from 
which  we  quote : 

"I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
At  some  disputed  barricade ; 
When   Spring  comes   back   with   rustling   shade 
And  apple  blossoms  fill  the  air — 
I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
When  Spring  brings  back  blue  days  and  fair. 

"God  knows,  'twere  better  to  be  deep 
Pillowed  in  silk  and  scented  down, 
Where  Love  throbs  out  in  blissful  sleep, 
Pulse  nigh  to  pulse,  and  breath  to  breath, 
Where  hushed  awakenings  are  dear,    ,    .    . 
But  I've  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
At  midnight  in  some  flaming  town  ; 
When  Spring  trips  north  again  this  year, 
And  I  to  my  pledged  word  am  true, 
I  shall  not  fail  that  rendezvous." 

Poems   by  Alan   Seeger. 

The  Song  of  God 
From  the  lighter  thoughts  of  Youth,  Joy, 
Fame,     Beauty,     through     the     "long,     long 


62  GIANT  HOURS 

thoughts  of  Youth";  through  Love  and  Death 
it  is  not  a  long  way  to  cHmb  to  God.  We  would 
not  expect  this  young  poet  to  be  thinking  much 
in  this  direction,  but  he  does  just  the  same.  I 
have  even  found  those  who  say  that  he  was  not 
a  God-man,  but  these  poems  refute  that  slander 
on  a  dead  man  and  poet.  I  find  him  singing  in 
"The  Nympholept" : 

"I  think  it  was  the  same:  some  piercing  sense 
Of  Deity's  pervasive  immanence, 
The  life  that  visible  Nature  doth  indwell 
Grown  great  and  near  and  all  but  palpable 
He  might  not  linger  but  with  winged  strides 
Like  one  pursued,  fled  down  the  mountainsides." 

Poems   by  Alan    Seeger. 

This  reminds  one  instantly  of  the  haunting 
Christ  of  Thompson's  "The  Hound  of  Heav- 
en." And  again  in  the  presence  of  War's  death 
the  poet  felt  that  other  and  greater  presence 
without  doubt,  as  these  words  prove : 

"When  to  the  last  assault  our  bugles  blow : 
Reckless  of  pain  and  peril  we  shall  go. 
Heads  high  and  hearts  aflame  and  bayonets  bare, 
And  we  shall  brave  eternity  as  though 
Eyes  looked  on  us  in  which  we  would  see  fair — 
One  waited  in  whose  presence  we  would  wear, 
Even  as  a  lover  who  would  be  well-seen, 
Our  manhood  faultless  and  our  honor  clean." 

Poems   by  Alan    Seeger. 

And  with  magnificent  acknowledgment  of 
the  divine  plan  of  it  all,  of  life  and  war  and  all, 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         63 

he  sweeps  that  truly  great  poem,  "The  Hosts," 
to  a  swinging  dimax  in  its  last  tremendous 
stanza;  which,  fitting  too,  shall  be  the  closing 
lines  of  this  chapter  on  our  dead  American, 
martyred  poet. 

He  first  speaks  of  the  marching  columns  of 
soldiers  as  "Big  with  the  beauty  of  cosmic 
things.    Mark  how  their  columns  surge !" 

"With  bayonets  bare  and   flags  unfurled. 
They  scale  the  summits  of  the  world — " 

Poems  by  Alan   Seeger. 

And  then : 

"There  was  a  stately  drama  writ 
By  the  hand  that  peopled  the  earth  and  air 
And  set  the  stars  in  the  infinite 
And  made  night  gorgeous  and  morning  fair, 
And  all  that  had  sense  to  reason  knew 
That  bloody  drama  must  be  gone  through." 

Poems  by  Alan   Seegen 


ENGLISH  POETS 


John  Oxenham 
Alfred  Noyes 
John  Masefield 
Robert  Service 
Rupert  Brooke 


JOHN  OXENHAM 


V 

JOHN  OXENHAM^ 

Who  Makes  Articulate  the  Voice  of  War, 
Peace,  the  Cross,  the  Christ 

IN  the  first  volume  of  The  Student  in  Arms, 
that  widely  read  book  of  the  war,  Donald 
Hankey  has  a  chapter  on  "The  Religion 
of  the  Inarticulate,"  in  which  he  shows  that 
the  "Tommy"  who  for  so  long  has  been  accused 
of  having  no  religion,  really  has  a  very  definite 
one.  He  has  a  religion  that  embraces  all  the 
Christian  virtues,  such  as  love,  sacrifice,  broth- 
erhood, and  comradeship,  but  he  has  never 
connected  these  with  either  Christ  or  the 
church.  His  religion  is  the  "Religion  of  the 
Inarticulate."  Hankey  then  shows  that  this 
war  is  articulating  religion  as  never  before. 

John  Oxenham,  Poet-Preacher,  is  giving 
articulation    to   the   voice    of    Christianity — a 

^The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission, and  are  taken  from  the  following  works:  The  Vision  Splendid, 
All's  Well,  and  The  Fiery  Cross.  Published  by  George  H.  Doran 
Company,    New   York. 

67 


68  GIANT  HOURS 

voice  ringing  out  from  over  and  above  the 
thunder  of  the  guns,  the  blare,  the  flare,  the 
outcry,  the  hurt,  the  pain  and  anguish  of  the 
most  awful  war  that  earth  has  ever  suffered. 
Some  of  us  have  been  thinking  of  this  war  in 
terms  of  Christian  hope.  We  have  thought 
that  we  see  in  it  a  new  Calvary  out  of  which 
shall  come  a  new  resurrection  to  the  spiritual 
world.  We  have  dreamed  that  men  are  being 
redeemed  through  the  sacrifice,  through  the 
spirit  of  service  and  brotherhood  thrust  upon 
the  world  by  war's  supreme  demands.  We 
have  thought  all  of  this,  but  we  have  not  been 
able  to  make  it  articulate.  Now  comes  a  poet 
to  do  it  for  us. 

What  magnificent  hope  sings  out,  even  in 
the  titles  that  Oxenham  has  selected  for  his 
books  in  these  days  of  darkness,  anguish  and 
lostness.  After  his  first  book,  Bees  in  Amber, 
comes  that  warm  handclasp  of  strength:  that 
thrill  of  hope;  that  word  of  a  watchman  in  the 
night,  like  a  sentinel  crying  through  the  very 
title  of  his  second  book,  "All's  Well."  Then 
came  The  Vision  Splendid,  and  soon  we  are 
to  have  The  Fiery  Cross.  The  publishers  were 
kind  enough  to  let  me  examine  this  last  book 
while  it  was  still  in  the  proof  sheets.  It  is  the 
one  great  hope  book  of  the  war.    Every  mother 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         69 

and  father  who  has  a  boy  in  the  war,  every 
wife  who  has  a  husband,  every  child  who  has  a 
father  will  thrill  with  a  new  pride  and  a  new 
dignity  after  reading  The  Fiery  Cross. 

War  and  Its  Voice 

No  poet  has  voiced  America's  reasons  for 
being  in  the  war  as  has  Oxenham,  and  nowhere 
does  he  do  it  better  than  in  "Where  Are  You 
Going,  Great-Heart?"  the  concluding  stanza 
of  which  sums  up  compactly  America's  high 
purposes : 

"Where  are  you  going,  Great-Heart? 
'To  set  all  burdened  peoples  free; 
To  win  for  all  God's  liberty ; 
To  'stablish  His  sweet  Sovereignty.' 
God  goeth  with  you,  Great-Heart !" 

The  Vision   Splendid. 

To  those  who  go  to  die  in  war  the  poet  ad- 
dresses himself  in  lines  which  he  titles  "On 
Eagle  Wings": 

"Higher  than  most,  to  you  is  given 
To  live — or  in  His  time,  to  die ; 
So,  bear  you  as  White  Knights  of  Heaven — 
The  very  flower  of  chivalry ! 
Take  Him  as  Pilot  by  your  side. 
And  'All  is  well'  whate'er  betide." 

The   Vision   Splendid. 

"If  God  be  with  you,  who  can  be  against 


70  GIANT  HOURS 

you  ?"  is  the  echo  that  we  hear  going  and  com- 
ing behind  these  great  Christian  Hnes.  Indeed, 
behind  every  poem  that  Oxenham  writes  we 
can  hear  the  echoes  of  some  great  scriptural 
word  of  promise,  or  hope  or  faith  or  courage. 
The  Christian,  as  well  as  those  who  never  saw 
the  Bible  or  a  church,  will  feel  at  home  with  this 
poet  anywhere.  The  advantage  that  the  Chris- 
tian will  have  in  reading  him  is  that  he  will 
understand  him  better. 

Turning  to  those  who  stay  at  home  and  have 
lost  loved  ones,  with  what  sympathy  and  deep, 
tender  understanding  does  he  write  in  "To 
You  Who  Have  Lost."  You  may  almost  see  a 
great  kindly  father  standing  by  your  side,  his 
warm  hand  in  yours  as  he  sings : 

"I  know  !     I  know ! — 

The  ceaseless  ache,  the  emptiness,  the  woe — 

The  pang  of  loss — 

The  strength  that  sinks  beneath  so  sore  a  cross. 
'Heedless  and  careless,  still  the  world  wags  on, 
And  leaves  me  broken,   .    .    .    Oh,  my  son !  my  son !' " 

"Yea — think  of  this ! — 
Yea,  rather  think  on  this ! — 
He  died  as  few  men  get  the  chance  to  die — 
Fighting  to  save  a  world's  morality. 
He  died  the  noblest  death  a  man  may  die, 
Fighting  for  God,  and  Right,  and  Liberty — 
And  such  a  death  is  Immortality."  ^jj-s  Well. 

If  those  who  have  lost  loved  ones  "Over 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         71 

There"  cannot  be  buoyed  by  that,  I  know  not 
what  will  buoy  them,  what  will  comfort. 

Oxenham  too  gives  us  a  picture  of  a  battle- 
field where  birds  sing  and  roses  bloom,  just  as 
do  Service  and  several  other  poets  who  have 
been  in  the  midst  of  the  conflict.  We  have  be- 
come familiar  with  this  picture,  but  no  writer 
yet  has  caught  its  full,  eternal  meaning  and 
pressed  it  down  into  three  lines  for  the  world 
as  has  this  man;  in  "Here,  There,  and  Every- 
where" : 

"Man  proposes — God  disposes ; 
Yet  our  hope  in  Him  reposes 
Who  in  war-time  still  makes  roses." 

The  Fiery  Cross. 

But  this  poet  in  his  interpretation  of  war 
does  not  forget  peace ;  does  not  forget  that  it  is 
coming;  does  not  forget  that  the  world  is  hun- 
gry for  it;  does  not  forget  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  poets  and  the  thinking  men  and  women 
of  the  world  not  only  to  get  ready  for  it,  but  to 
lead  the  way  to  it. 

Peace  and  Its  Voice 
In  a  remarkable  poem  called  ''Watchman! 
What  of  the  Night?"  we  see  this  great  heart 
standing  sentinel  on  the  walls  of  the  world, 
watching  the  midnight  skies  red  with  the  blaze 
and  glow  of  carnage : 


^2  GIANT  HOURS 

"Watchman!     What  of  the  night? 

No  light  we  see ; 
Our  souls  are  bruised  and  sickened  with  the  sight 

Of  this  foul  crime  against  humanity. 
The  Ways  are  dark — 

'I  SEE  THE  MORNING  LIGHT!' 

"Beyond  the  war-clouds  and  the  reddened  ways, 
I  see  the  promise  of  the  Coming  Days ! 
I  see  His  sun  rise,  new  charged  with  grace, 
Earth's  tears  to  dry  and  all  her  woes  efface! 
Christ  lives !    Christ  loves !    Christ  rules  ! 
No  more  shall   Might, 

Though  leagued  with  all  the  forces  of  the  Night, 
Ride  over  Right.    No  more  shall  Wrong 
The  world's  gross  agonies  prolong. 
Who  waits  His  time  shall  surely  see 
The  triumph  of  His  Constancy ; 
When,  without  let,  or  bar,  or  stay. 
The  coming  of  His  Perfect  Day 
Shall  sweep  the  Powers  of  Night  away; 
And  Faith  replumed  for  nobler  flight, 
And  Hope  aglow  with  radiance  bright, 
And  Love  in  loveliness  bedight 

SHALL  GREET  THE  MORNING  LIGHT." 

All's  Well. 

Then,  as  is  most  fair  and  logical,  the  poet 
tells  us  how  we  are  to  build  again  after  peace 
comes.  We  must  needs  know  that.  The  news- 
papers are  full  of  a  certain  popular  move — and 
success  to  it — to  rebuild  the  destroyed  cities 
of  France  and  Belgium.  But  the  rebuilding 
that  the  poet  speaks  of  in  "The  Winnowing" 
is  a  deeper  thing.  It  is  a  spiritual  rebuilding 
without  which  there  is  no  permanent  peace  in 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         73 

the  world  and  no  permanent  safety  for  the 
material  world. 

"How   shall   we   start,   Lord,   to  build   life   again, 
Fairer  and  sweeter,  and  freed  from  its  pain? 
'Build  ye  in  Me  and  your  building  shall  be 
Builded  for  Time  and  Eternity.' " 

All's  Well. 

There  is  the  answer  to  the  world's  cry  in 
short,  sharp,  succinct  lines;  compact  as  a  bib- 
lical phrase;  and  as  meaningful.  Hearken  it, 
ye  world!  Only  in  Him  can  the  new  spiritual 
world  be  built  for  "Time  and  Eternity."  And 
only  to  those  who  so  believe  and  hold  shall  the 
world  belong  henceforth.  At  least  so  says  our 
poet: 

"To  whom  shall  the  world  henceforth  belong 
And  who  shall  go  up  and  possess  it?" 

which  question  he  himself  answers  in  the  same 
verse : 

"To  the  Men  of  Good  Fame 
Who  everything  claim — 
This  world  and  the  next — in  their  Master's  great  name — 

"To  these  shall  the  world  henceforth  belong, 
And  they  shall  go  up  and  possess  it; 
Overmuch,  overlong,  has  the  world  suflfered  wrong, 
We  are  here  by  God's  help  to  redress  it." 

The  Fiery  Cross. 

And  finally  in  this  fight  for  peace  he  does 
not  forget  prayer,  and  in  "The  Prayer  Im- 
mortal," which  is  introduced,  as  are  so  many  of 


74  GIANT  HOURS 

Oxenham's  poems,  by  a  phrase  from  the  Bible, 
**Thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done,"  he  ad- 
monishes those  who  seek  peace: 

"So — to  your  knees — 
And,  with  your  heart  and  soul,  pray  God 
That  wars  may  cease, 
And  earth,  by  His  good  will, 
Through  these  rough  ways,  find  peace!" 

The  Fiery  Cross. 

The  Cross  and  Its  Voice 

The  voice  of  the  cross  of  Calvary  is  being 
heard  this  day  of  war  as  it  has  never  been 
heard  before.  The  world  is  resonant  with  its 
message.  Every  soldier,  every  nation,  every 
home,  every  mother  and  father  and  child  and 
wife  who  has  suffered  because  of  this  war,  shall 
henceforth  understand  the  Christ  and  his  cross 
the  better.  All  through  this  writer's  interpreta- 
tions of  the  war  we  find  the  cross  to  the  fore. 
To  him  the  cross  symbolizes  the  war.  This 
war  is  the  cross  in  a  deep  and  abiding  sense. 
In  "Through  the  Valley"  he  says: 

"And  there  of  His  radiant  company, 
Full  many  a  one  I  see. 
Who  has  won  through  the  Valley  of  Shadows 

To  the  larger  liberty. 
Even  there  in  the  grace  of  the  heavenly  place, 

It  is  joy  to  meet  mine  own. 
And  to  know  that  not  one  but  has  valiantly  won. 
By  the  way  of  the  Cross,  his  crown." 

The  Vision  Splendid. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         75 

Thank  God  for  that  hope!  Thank  God  for 
that  word ! 

In  *The  Ballad  of  Jim  Baxter"  this  same 
thought  is  more  vividly  and  strongly  set  forth. 
It  is  the  story  of  one  type  of  German  cruelty 
of  which  we  have  heard  in  the  war  dispatches 
several  times  and  that  have  been  confirmed  on 
the  spot ;  the  story  of  the  Germans  nailing  men 
to  crosses.  Jim  Baxter  suffered  this  experi- 
ence: 

"When  Jim  came  to,  he  found  himself 

Nailed  to  a  cross  of  wood. 
Just  like  the  Christs  you  find  out  there 
On  every  country  road. 

"He  wondered  dully   if  he'd  died, 

And  so,  become  a  Christ; 
'Perhaps,'  he  thought,  'all  men  are  Christs 
When  they  are  crucified.' " 

The   Vision   Splendid. 

And  in  this  homely  lad's  homely  way  of  put- 
ting his  cruel  experience  who  knows  but  that 
there  may  be  such  truth  as  yet  we  cannot  see  in 
the  dark  chaos  of  war? 

The  Christ  and  His  Voice 

It  isn't  a  far  step  from  the  cross  to  the  Christ 
of  the  cross,  and  in  this  man's  poetry  the  two 
mingle  and  commingle  so  closely  that  one  over- 
laps the  other.     But  always  these  two  things 


76  GIANT  HOURS 

stand  out — the  cross  and  the  Christ.  And  in 
the  new  volume,  The  Fiery  Cross,  one  finds 
many  pages  devoted ,  to  this  great  thought 
alone. 

Of  the  tenderness  of  the  Christ  he  speaks 
most  sympathetically,  having  in  mind  again 
the  lads  that  war  has  taken.  In  "The  Master's 
Garden"  hear  him: 

"And  some,  with  wondrous  tenderness, 
To  His  lips  He  gently  pressed, 
And  fervent  blessings  breathed  on  them, 
And  laid  them  in  His  breast." 

The   Vision   Splendid. 

And  then  of  his  sweetness,  referring  again 
to  the  "Jim  Baxter,"  we  have  a  wonderful  pic- 
ture of  the  oft  mentioned  Comrade  in  White, 
who  is  so  real  to  the  wounded  soldiers : 

"His  face  was  wondrous  pitiful. 

But  still  more  wondrous  sweet; 
And  Jim  saw  holes  just  like  his  own 

In  His  white  hands  and  feet; 
But  His  look  it  was  that  won  Jim's  heart, 

It  was  so  wondrous  sweet. 

"  'Christ !' — said  the  dying  man  once  more, 
With   accent   reverent, 
He  had  never  said  it  so  before. 
But  he  knew  now  what  Christ  meant — " 

The   Vision   Splendid. 

Oxenham  has  great  faith  in  humanity. 
From  time  to  time  we  find  him  expressing  man's 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         yj 

kinship  with  the  stars  and  with  God  and  Christ. 
"Thou  hast  made  him  a  Httle  lower  than  the 
angels"  this  poet  takes  seriously,  thank  God. 
This  word  from  the  Book  means  something  to 
him.  And  so  it  is  in  a  poem  called  "In  Every 
Man"  we  see  him  finding  Christ  in  every  man : 

"In  every  soul  of  all  mankind 
Somewhat  of  Christ  I  find, 

Somewhat  of  Christ — and  Thee; 
For  in  each  one  there  surely  dwells 
That    something    which    most    surely    spells 
Life's  immortality. 

"And  so,  for  love  of  Christ — and  Thee, 
I  will  not  cease  to  seek  and  find, 

In  all  mankind, 
That  hope  of  immortality 
Which  dwells  so  sacramentally 
In  Christ — and  Thee." 

The  Fiery  Cross. 

He  feels  Christ's  eternity  so  much  that  he 
cries  out  for  him  continually  and  will  not  be 
satisfied  without  him.  He  knows  that  he  must 
have  the  Christ  if  he  wants  to  grow  great 
enough  to  meet  life's  demands.  In  a  poem,  "A 
Prayer  for  Enlargement,"  which  I  quote  in  full 
because  of  its  brevity,  one  feels  this  depend- 
ence: 

"Shrive  me  of  all  my  littleness  and  sin! 
Open  your  great  heart  wide ! 
Open  it  wide  and  take  me  in. 
For  the  sake  of  Christ  who  died! 


78  GIANT  HOURS 

"Was  I  grown  small  and  strait? — 
Then   shalt  Thou  make  me  wide. 
Through  the  love  of  Christ  who  died, 
Thou — thou  shalt  make  me  great." 

The  Fiery  Cross. 

To  the  Christian  the  following  quotation  will 
mean  much.  In  it  we  hear  the  echo  of  Mase- 
field's  The  Everlasting  Mercy ;  or  of  that  mar- 
velous story  of  the  regeneration  of  a  human 
soul  in  Tolstoy's  The  Resurrection;  an  old- 
fashioned  conversion  of  a  human  being;  a 
Paul's  on  the  road  to  Damascus  experience. 
And  the  tragedy  is  that  just  about  the  time  that 
the  world  of  literature  is  being  fascinated  with 
this  story  of  ''Rebirth"  the  church  seems  to  be 
forgetting  it.  It  is  told  in  the  first  verse  of  Ex 
Tenebris— "The  Lay  of  the  King  Who  Rose 
Again" : 

"Take  away  my  rage  I 
Take  away  my  sin ! 
Strip  me  all  bare 
Of  that  I  did  wear — 
The    foul    rags,    the   base    rags, 
The  rude  and  the  mean ! 
Strip  me,  yea  strip  me 
Right  down  to  my  skin  1 
Strip  me  all  bare 
Of  that  I  have  been  ! 
Then  wash  me  in  water. 
In  fair  running  water. 
Wash  me  without. 
And  wash  me  within, 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         79 

In    fair   running  water, 

In  fresh  running  water, 

Wash  me,  ah  wash  me, 

And  make  me  all  clean ! 

— Clean  of  the  soilure 

And  clean  of  the  sin, 

— Clean  of  the  soul-crushing 

Sense  of  defilure, 

— Clean  of  the  old  self, 

And  clean  of  the  sin ! 

In  fair  running  water. 

In  fresh  running  water, 

In  sun-running  water, 

All  sweet  and  all  pure. 

Wash  me,  ah  wash  me. 

And  I  shall  be  clean."  ^he  Fiery  Cross. 

God  AND  His  Voice 

From  the  voice  of  Christ  and  the  voice  of  the 
cross  it  is  not  far  to  hear  the  voice  of  God  either 
in  Hfe  or  in  John  Oxenham's  books.  Behind 
the  cross  and  behind  the  Christ  stands  the 
Father,  and  a  treatment  of  this  great  poet's 
writings  would  not  be  complete  if  one  did  not 
quote  a  few  excerpts  from  his  writings  to  show 
that  God  was  ever  present  "keeping  watch 
above  his  own." 

The  first  note  we  catch  of  the  Father's  voice 
is  in  "The  Call  of  the  Dead": 

"One  way  there  is — one  only — 
Whereby  ye  may  stand  sure; 
One  way  by  which  ye  may  understand 
All  foes,  and  Life's  High  Ways  command, 
And  make  your  building  sure. — 


8o  GIANT  HOURS 

Take  God  once  more  as  Counselor, 
Work  with  Him,  hand  in  hand. 
Build  surely,  in  His  Grace  and  Power, 
The  nobler  things  that  shall  endure, 
And,  having  done  all, — STAND!" 

The  Vision  Splendid. 

And  as  the  poet  has  walked  the  streets  of 
America  and  elsewhere  and  has  seen  the  serv- 
ice flag,  which  in  "Each  window  shrines  a 
name,"  he  has  felt  God  everywhere.  In  "The 
Leaves  of  the  Golden  Book"  he  comforts  those 
who  mourn: 

"God  will  gather  all  these  scattered 

Leaves  into  His  Golden  Book, 
Torn  and  crumpled,  soiled  and  battered, 

He  will  heal  them  with  a  look. 
Not  one  soul  of  them  has  perished; 

No  man  ever  yet  forsook 
Wife  and  home,  and  all  he  cherished. 

And  God's  purpose  undertook. 
But  he  met  his   full  reward 

In  the  'Well  Done'  of  his  Lord !" 

The   Vision  Splendid. 

So  it  is  that  over  and  over  we  hear  this  note, 
wrung  from  the  experiences  of  war,  that  those 
who  give  up  all,  to  die  for  God's  plan,  to  take 
the  cross  in  suffering  that  the  world  may  be 
better;  these  shall  have  life  eternal.  And  who 
dares  to  dispute  it? 

In  "Our  Share"  we  are  admonished  that  w^e 
must  find  God  anew: 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         8i 

"Heads  of  sham  gold  and  feet  of  crumbling  clay, 
If  we  would  build  anew  and  build  to  stay, 
We  must  find  God  again, 
And  go  His  way."  All's  Well. 

Oxenham  does  not  claim  to  fully  understand 
the  world  cataclysm  any  more  than  some  of  the 
rest  of  us.  If  we  all  had  to  understand,  we 
might  find  ourselves  ineligible  for  the  King- 
dom, but  the  Book  says  everywhere,  "He  that 
believeth  on  me  shall  have  everlasting  life." 
And  we  can  believe  whether  we  understand  or 
no.  So  voices  the  poet  in  ''God's  Handwrit- 
ing": 

"He  writes  in  characters  too  grand 
For  our  short  sight  to  understand; 
We  catch  but  broken  strokes,  and  try 
To  fathom  all  the  mystery 
Of  withered  hopes,  of  deaths,  of  life, 
The  endless  war,  the  useless  strife, — 
But  there,  with  larger,  clearer  sight, 
We  shall  see  this — 

HIS  WAY  WAS  RIGHT."  ^ll's  Well. 

What  better  way  to  close  this  brief  interpre- 
tation of  our  poet  in  this  day  of  darkness  and 
hate  and  hurt  and  war  and  woe  and  want,  of 
seeing  hopelessness  and  helplessness,  than  with 
these  heartening  lines  from  "God  Is": 

"God  is; 
God  sees ; 
God  loves ; 
God  knows.  i 


82  GIANT  HOURS 

And  Right  is  Right; 

And  Right  is  Might. 
In  the  full  ripeness  of  His  Time, 
All  these  His  vast  prepotencies 
Shall    round    their   grace-work   to   the   prime 
Of   full  accomplishment, 
And  we  shall  see  the  plan  sublime 
Of  His  beneficent  intent. 
Live  on  in  hope ! 
Press  on  in  faith ! 
Love  conquers  all  things, 
Even  Death." 

AU's  WelL 


ALFRED  NOYES 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         83 


VI 

ALFRED  NOYES^ 

A  Study  of  Childhood,  of  Manhood,  Christhood, 
AND  Godhood 

IF  one  wants  to  find  the  tenderest,  most 
completely  sympathetic  study  of  child- 
hood, one  that  finds  echo  not  only  in  the 
heart  of  the  grown-up,  but  in  the  heart  of  chil- 
dren the  world  over,  he  must  this  day  go  to 
Alfred  Noyes.  If  you  want  proof  of  this,  read 
'The  Forest  of  Wild  Thyme"  or  "The  Flower 
of  Old  Japan"  to  your  children  and  watch  them 
sit  with  open  mouths  and  open  hearts  to  hear 
these  wonder  fairy  tales.  And,  further,  if  you 
are  too  grown-up  to  want  to  read  Noyes  for  his 
complete  sympathy  with  childhood,  more  uni- 
versal even  than  our  beloved  Riley;  and  you 
want  a  poet  that  challenges  you  to  a  more  vigor- 
ous manhood,  a  poet  who  calls  man  to  his 
highest  and  deepest  virility,  read  Noyes.  Or, 
if  you  happen  to  need  a  clearer,  firmer  insight 

^The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by 
permission,  and  are  taken  from  Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes,  two 
volumes,  copyright,  191 3,  by  the  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  New 
York. 


84  GIANT  HOURS 

into  the  man  of  Galilee  and  Calvary,  read 
Noyes;  and,  finally,  if  you  want  firmer,  more 
rocklike  foundations  to  plant  your  faith  in  God 
upon,  read  Noyes,  for  herein  one  finds  all  of 
these.  From  childhood  to  Godhood  is,  indeed, 
a  wide  range  for  a  poet  to  take,  and  yet  they 
are  akin. 

As  another  poet  has  said,  none  less  than 
Edwin  Markham,  "Know  man  and  you  will 
know^  the  deep  of  God."  And  as  Noyes  himself 
says  in  the  introduction  to  "The  Forest  of  Wild 
Thyme": 

"Husband,  there  was  a  happy  day, 
Long  ago  in  love's  young  May, 
When,  with  a  wild-flower  in  your  hand 
You  echoed  that  dead  poet's  cry — 
'Little  flower,  but  if  I  could  understand !' 
And  you  saw  it  had  roots  in  the  depth  of  the  sky. 
And  there  in  that  smallest  bud  lay  furled 
The  secret  and  meaning  of  all  the  world." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  when  we  know  that  the  mother  was  talk- 
ing about  "Little  Peterkin,"  their  lost  baby, 
we  know  that  she  meant  that  in  a  little  child 
there  lay  furled  "The  secret  and  meaning  of 
all  the  world." 

And  so,  beginning  with  childhood,  through 
those  intermediate  steps  of  manhood  and 
Christhood,  with  Noyes  leading  us,  as  he  liter- 
ally leads  the  little  tots  through  the  mysteries 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         85 

of  Old  Japan  and  the  Wild  Thyme,  let  us  go 
from  tree  to  tree,  and  flower  to  flower,  and 
hope  to  hope,  and  pain  to  pain,  up  to  God,  from 
whence  we  came.  It  is  a  clear  sweet  pathway 
that  he  leads  us. 

Childhood  and  Its  Glory 

Noyes  assumes  something  that  we  all  know 
for  truth :  that  "Grown-ups  do  not  understand" 
childhood.  But  after  reading  this  sweet  poet 
we  know  that  he  does  understand ;  and  we  thank 
God  for  him.  In  Part  II  of  "The  Forest  of 
Wild  Thyme"  one  sees  this  clearly. 

"O,  grown-ups  cannot  understand. 
And  grown-ups  never  will, 
How  short's  the  way  to  fairyland 

Across  the  purple  hill : 
They  smile :  their  smile  is  very  bland, 

Their  eyes  are  wise  and  chill ; 
And  yet — at  just  a  child's  command — 
The  world's  an  Eden  still." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Thank  the  stars  that  watch  over  us  in  love 
that  the  great-hearted  poets,  and  the  children 
of  the  world — at  least  those  little  ones  that  a 
half-way  Christian  civilization  has  not  robbed 
of  childhood — know  that  "The  world's  an  Eden 
still." 

From  the  prelude  to  "The  Flower  of  Old 


86  GIANT  HOURS 

Japan"  comes  that  same  note,  like  a  bluebird  in 
springtime,  that  note  of  belief,  of  trust,  of 
hope: 

"Do  you  remember  the  blue  stream ; 

The  bridge  of  pale  bamboo ; 
The  path  that  seemed  a  twisted  dream 

Where  everything  came  true  ; 
The  purple  cheery-trees ;  the  house 
With  jutting  eaves  below  the  boughs; 

The  mandarins  in  blue, 
With  tiny  tapping,  tilted  toes, 
With  curious  curved  mustachios? 

"Ah,  let  us  follow,  follow  far 

Beyond  the  purple  seas ; 
Beyond  the  rosy  foaming  bar, 

The  coral  reef,  the  trees, 
The  land  of  parrots  and  the  wild 
That  rolls  before  the  fearless  child 

In  ancient  mysteries : 
Onward,  and  onward  if  we  can, 
To  Old  Japan,  to  Old  Japan." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  "The  Forest  of  Wild  Thyme"  is  full  of 
the  echos  of  fairy  tales  and  childhood  rhymes 
heard  the  world  over.  Little  Peterkin,  who 
went  with  the  children  to  "Old  Japan,"  is  dead 
now: 

"Come,  my  brother  pirates,  I  am  tired  of  play; 

Come  and  look  for  Peterkin,  little  brother  Peterkin, 
Our  merry  little  comrade  that  the   fairies  took  away." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  so,  they  go  to  the  last  place  they  saw 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         87 

him,  the  old  God's  Acre,  and  fall  asleep  amid 
the  wild  thyme  blooming  there.  As  they  dream 
the  thyme  grows  to  the  size  of  trees,  and  they 
wander  about  in  the  forest  hunting  for  Peter- 
kin. 

As  they  hunted  they  found  out  who  killed 
Cock  Robin.  They  appeal  to  Little  Boy  Blue 
to  help  them  hunt  for  Peterkin : 

"Little  Boy  Blue,  you  are  gallant  and  brave, 

There  was  never  a  doubt  in  those  clear,  bright  eyes. 
Come,  challenge  the  grim,  dark  Gates  of  the  Grave 
As  the  skylark  sings  to  those  infinite  skies !" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

The  King  of  Fairyland  gives  command  to 
Pease-Blossom : 

"And  cried,  Pease-blossom,  Mustard-Seed !  You  know  the  old 
command  ; 
Well ;  these  are  little  children ;  you  must  lead  them  on  to 
Peterkin  1" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

They  even  discovered,  as  they  were  led  on  by 
Pease-Blossom  and  Mustard-Seed,  how  fairies 
were'born : 

"Men  upon  earth 
Bring  us  to  birth 
Gently  at  even  and  morn ! 
When  as  brother  and  brother 
They  greet  one  another 
And  smile — then  a  fairy  is  born!" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 


88  GIANT  HOURS 

And,  too,  they  found  why  fairies  die: 

"But  at  each  cruel  word 
Upon  earth  that  is  heard, 
Each  deed  of  unkindness  or  hate, 
Some  fairy  must  pass 
From  the  games  in  the  grass 
And  steal  through  the  terrible  Gate." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  they  learned  what  it  took  to  make  a  rose : 

"  'What  is  there  hid  in  the  heart  of  a  rose, 

Mother-mine?' 
*Ah,  who  knows,  who  knows,  who  knows? 
A  man  that  died  on  a  lonely  hill 
May  tell  you  perhaps,  but  none  other  will, 

Little  child.' 

"  'What  does  it  take  to  make  a  rose. 
Mother-mine?' 
'The  God  that  died  to  make  it  knows. 
It  takes  the  world's  eternal  wars. 
It  takes  the  moon  and  all  the  stars, 
It  takes  the  might  of  heaven  and  hell 
And  the  everlasting  Love  as  well. 
Little  child.' " 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  they  heard  the  old  tales  over : 

"And  'See-Saw ;  Margery  Daw,'  we  heard  a  rollicking  shout, 
As  the  swing  boats  hurtled  over  our  heads  to  the  tune  of  the 

roundabout ; 
And  'Little  Boy  Blue,  come  blow  up  your  horn,'  we  heard 

the  showmen  cry. 
And  'Dickery  Dock,  I'm  as  good  as  a  clock,'  we  heard  the 

swings   reply."  Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Then  at  last  they  found  their  little  brother 
Peterkin  in  "The  Babe  of  Bethlehem." 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         89 

And  if  this  were  not  enough  to  make  the 
reader  see  how  completely  and  wholly  and 
sympathetically  Noyes  understood  the  child 
heart,  hear  this  word  from  his  great  soul: 

"Kind  little  eyes  that  I  love, 
Eyes  forgetful  of  mine, 
In  a  dream  I  am  bending  above 

Your  sleep  and  you  open  and  shine; 
And  I  know  as  my  own  grow  blind 

With  a  lonely  prayer  for  your  sake. 
He  will  hear — even  me — little  eyes  that  were  kind, 
God  bless  you,  asleep  or  awake !" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Manhood  and  Its  Vigor 

Virility  like  unto  steel  is  the  very  mark  of 
Noyes.  But  as  this  study  of  Childhood  has 
shown,  it  is  a  virility  touched  with  tenderness. 
As  Bayard  Taylor  sings : 

"The  bravest  are  the  tenderest. 
The  loving  are  the  daring!" 

And  this  is  Noyes.  Noyes  knew  Manhood, 
he  sang  it,  he  challenged  it  too,  he  crowned  it 
in  ''Drake" ;  he  placed  it  a  little  lower  than  the 
gods.  Hear  this  supreme  word,  enough  to  lift 
man  to  the  skies : 

"Where,  what  a  dreamer  yet,  in  spite  of  all, 
Is  man,  that  splendid  visionary  child 
Who  sent  his  fairy  beacon  through  the  dusk !" 
Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 


90  GIANT  HOURS 

This  tribute  to  Marlow — how  eaglelike  it  is ! 
How  suggestive  of  heights,  and  mountain 
peaks  and  blue  skies  and  far-flung  stars ! 

"But  he  who  dared  the  thunder-roll, 

Whose  eagle-wings  could  soar, 

Buffeting  down  the  clouds  of  night. 

To  beat  against  the  Light  of  Light, 

That  great  God-blinded  eagle-soul. 

We  shall  not  see  him  morel" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Then  he  makes  us  one  with  all  that  is  granite 
and  flower  and  high  and  holy  in  "The  Loom  of 
the  Years": 

"One  with  the  flower  of  a  day,  one  with  the  withered  moon, 
One  with  the  granite  mountains  that  melt  into  the  noon, 
One  with  the  dream  that  triumphs  beyond  the  light  of  the 

spheres. 
We  come  from  the  Loom  of  the  Weaver,  that  weaves  the 
Web  of  the  Years." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

From  "Drake"  again  this  ringing  word : 

"His  face  was  like  a  king's  face  as  he  spake, 
For  sorrows  that  strike  deep  reveal  the  deep; 
And  through  the  gateways  of  a  ragged  wound 
Sometimes  a  God  will  drive  his  chariot  wheels 
From  some  deep  heaven  within  the  hearts  of  men  1" 
Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Christhood  and  Its  Calvary 

From  childhood  to  manhood  through  Christ- 
hood  to  Godhood  is  a  progression  that  Noyes 
sees  clearly  and  makes  us  see  as  clearly.    Some- 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         91 

how  Christ  is  very  real  to  Noyes.  He  is  not  a 
historical  character  far  off.  He  is  the  Christ 
of  here  and  now;  the  Christ  that  meets  our 
every  need ;  as  real  as  a  dearly  beloved  friend 
next  door  to  us.  No  poet  sees  the  Christ  more 
clearly. 

First  he  caught  the  meanings  of  Christ's 
gospel  of  new  birth.  He  was  not  confused  on 
that.    He  knows : 

"The  task  is  hard  to  learn 
While  all  the  songs  of  Spring  return 
Along  the  blood  and  sing. 

"Yet  hear — from  her  deep  skies, 
How  Art,  for  all  your  pain,  still  cries, 
Ye  must  be  born  again!" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  who  could  put  his  worship  more  beau- 
tifully than  the  poet  does  in  "The  Symbolist"  ? 

"Help  me  to  seek  that  unknown  land ! 
I  kneel  before  the  shrine. 
Help  me  to  feel  the  hidden  hand 
That  ever  holdeth  mine. 

"I  kneel  before  the  Word,  I  kneel 
Before  the  Cross  of  flame. 
I  cry,  as  through  the  gloom  I  steal, 
The  glory  of  the  Name." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Christ's  face,  and  his  life  experiences,  here 
and  there  slip  out  of  the  lines  of  this  English 
poet  with  an  insistence  that  cannot  but  win  the 


92  GIANT  HOURS 

heart  of  the  world,  especially  the  heart  of  the 
Christian.  Here  and  there  in  the  most  unex- 
pected places  his  living  presence  stands  before 
you,  with,  to  use  another  of  the  poet's  own 
lines,  "Words  that  would  make  the  dead 
arise,"  as  in  "Vicisti,  Galilee": 

"Poor,  scornful  Lilliputian  souls, 
And  are  ye  still  too  proud 
To  risk  your  little  aureoles 
By  kneeling  with  the  crowd? 

"And  while  ye  scoff,  on  every  side 
Great  hints  of  Him  go  by, — 
Souls  that  are  hourly  crucified 
On  some  new  Calvary!" 

"In  flower  and  dust,  in  chaff  and  grain, 
He  binds  Himself  and  dies ! 
We  live  by  His  eternal  pain, 
His  hourly  sacrifice." 

"And  while  ye  scoflf  from  shore  to  shore 
From  sea  to  moaning  sea, 
*Eloi,  eloi,'  goes  up  once  more, 

'Lama  sabachthani !' 
The  heavens  are  like  a  scroll  unfurled. 

The  writing  flames  above — 
This  is  the  King  of  all  the  World 
Upon  His  Cross  of  Love!" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  there  in  the  very  midst  of  "Drake,"  that 
poem  of  a  great  sea  fighter,  comes  this  quatrain 
unexpectedly,  showing  the  Christ  always  in  the 
background  of  the  poet's  mind.     He  uses  the 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         93 

Christ  eagerly  as  a  figure,  as  a  help  to  his 
thought.  He  always  puts  the  Christ  and  his 
cross  to  the  fore : 

"Whence  came  the  prentice  carpenter  whose  voice 
Hath  shaken  kingdoms  down,  whose  menial  gibbet 
Rises  triumphant  o'er  the  wreck  of  Empires 
•^        And  stretches  out  its  arms  amongst  the  Stars?" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

Then  in  "The  Old  Skeptic"  we  hear  these 
of  the  Christ  in  the  concluding  lines : 

"I  will  go  back  to  my  home  and  look  at  the  wayside  flowers, 

And   hear    from   the   wayside  cabin   the   kind   old   hymns 

again. 

Where  Christ  holds  out  His  arms  in  the  quiet  evening  hours, 

And  the  light  of  the  chapel  porches  broods  on  the  peaceful 

lane. 

"And  there  I   shall  hear  men   praying  the  deep  old  foolish 
prayers, 
And  there  I  shall  see  once  more,  the  fond  old  faith  con- 
fessed, 
And  the  strange  old  light  on  their  faces  who  hear  as  a  bHnd 
man  hears — 
'Come  unto  me,  ye  weary,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.' 

"I  will  go  back  and  beheve  in  the  deep  old  foolish  tales. 
And  pray  the  simple  prayers  that  I  learned  at  my  mother's 
knee. 
Where  the   Sabbath  tolls  its  peace,  through  the  breathless 
mountain-vales. 
And  the  sunset's  evening  hymn  hallows  the  listening  sea." 
Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

GoDHOOD  AT  Last  and  Surely 
He  finds  God.    There  is  no  uncertainty  about 


94  GIANT  HOURS 

it.  From  childhood  to  Godhood  has  the  poet 
come,  and  we  have  come  with  him.  It  has  been 
a  triumphant  journey  upward.  But  we  have 
not  been  afraid.  Even  the  bhnding  hght  of 
God's  face  has  not  made  us  tremble.  We  have 
learned  to  know  him  through  this  climb  up- 
ward and  upward  to  his  throne. 

At  first  it  was  uncertain.  The  poet  had  to 
challenge  us  to  one  great  end  in  "The  Para- 
dox": 

"But  one  thing  is  needful;  and  ye  shall  be  true 

To  yourself  and  the  goal  and  the  God  that  ye  seek; 
Yea,  the  day  and  the  night  shall  requite  it  to  you 
If  ye  love  one  another,  if  your  love  be  not  weak!" 
Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

For  he  knew  the  heart  hunger  for  God  that 
was  in  every  human  breast: 

"I  am  full-fed,  and  yet 
I  hunger  I 

Who  set  this  fiercer  famine  in  my  maw? 
Who  set  this  fiercer  hunger  in  my  heart?" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

From  "Drake"  comes  that  scintillating  line : 
"A  scribble  of  God's  finger  in  the  sky";  and  an 
admonition  to  the  preacher:  "Thou  art  God's 
minister,  not  God's  oracle !" 

Nor  did  he  forget  that  man,  in  his  search  for 
God,  is,  after  all,  but  man,  and  weak !  So  from 
"Tales  of  a  Mermaid  Tavern" : 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         95 

".    .    .  and  of  that  other  Ocean 
Where  all  men  sail  so  blindly,  and  misjudge 
Their   friends,   their   charts,   their   storms,   their  stars, 
their  God!" 

Collected   Poems   by   Alfred   Noyes. 

Even  like  unto  "Bo'sin  Bill,"  who  was  and 
is  a  prevalent  type,  but  not  a  serious  type — 
that  man  who  claims  to  be  an  atheist,  but  in 
times  of  stress,  like  unto  us  all,  turns  to  God. 
And  what  humorous  creatures  we  are !  enough 
to  make  God  smile,  if  he  did  not  love  us  so 
much: 

"But  our  bo'sin  Bill  was  an  atheist  still 
Ex-cept — sometimes — in  the  dark  1" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  again  from  "The  Paradox" : 

"Flashing  forth  as  a  fiame, 
The  unnameable  Name, 
The  ineffable  Word, 
/  am  the  Lord!" 

"I  am  the  End  to  which  the  whole  world  strives : 

Therefore  are  ye  girdled  with  a  wild  desire  and  shod 
With  sorrow ;  for  among  you  all  no  soul 
Shall  ever  cease,  or  sleep,  or  reach  its  goal 
Of  union  and  communion  with  the  Whole 
Or  rest  content  with  less  than  being  God." 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 

And  thus  we  find  God,  with  Noyes.  And  I 
have  saved  for  the  last  quotation  one  from 
**The  Origin  of  Life,"  which  the  poet  says 
is  "Written  in  answer  to  certain  scientific 
theories."      I    save   it   for   the   last   because, 


96  GL\NT  HOURS 

strangely,  it  sums  up  all  the  journey  that  we 
have  passed  through,  from  childhood  to  God- 
hood: 

"Watched  the  great  hills  like  clouds  arise  and  set, 
And  one — named  Olivet; 

When  you  have  seen  as  a  shadow  passing  away, 
One  child  clasp  hands  and  pray ; 
When  you  have  seen  emerge  from  that  dark  mire 
One  martyr  ringed  with  fire; 
Or,  from  that  Nothingness,  by  special  grace 
One  woman's  love-lit  face  ..." 

"Dare  you  re-kindle  then, 
One  faith  for  faithless  men. 
And  say  you  found,  on  that  dark  road  you  trod, 
In  the  beginning,  God?" 

Collected  Poems  by  Alfred  Noyes. 


JOHN  MASEFIELD 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         97 


vn 

JOHN  MASEFIELD,  POET  FOR  THE 
PULPIT^ 

TO  climb  is  to  achieve.  We  like  to  see 
men  achieve;  and  the  harder  that 
achievement  is,  the  more  we  thrill  to 
it.  For  that  reason  we  all  have  a  hope  to  climb 
a  Shasta,  or  a  Whitney,  or  a  Hood  to  its  whit- 
est peak,  and  glory  in  the  achievement.  And 
because  of  this  human  delight  in  the  climb  we 
thrill  to  see  a  man  climb  out  of  sin,  or  out  of 
difficulty,  or  out  of  defeat  to  triumph. 

From  "bar-boy"  to  poet  is  a  great  achieve- 
ment, a  great  climb,  or  leap,  or  lift,  whichever 
figure  you  may  prefer,  but  that  is  exactly  what 
John  Masefield  did. 

Perhaps  Hutton's  figure  may  describe  it  bet- 
ter— "The  Leap  to  God."  At  least  ten  years 
ago  John  Masefield,  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  found  himself  in  New  York  city 
without  friends  and  without  means,  and  it  was 
not  to  him  an  unusual  thing  to  accept  the  posi- 

^The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission, and  are  taken  from  the  following  works:  The  Everlasting  Mercy 
and  the  Widow  in  the  Eye  Street,  Salt  Water  Poems  and  Ballads,  and 
Good   Friday,  published  by  The   Macmillan   Company,   New   York. 


98  GIANT  HOURS 

tion  of  "bar-boy"  in  a  New  York  saloon.  This 
particular  profession  has  within  its  scope  the 
duties  of  wiping  the  beer  bottles,  sweeping  the 
floor,  and  other  menial  tasks. 

And  now  John  Masefield  has  within  recent 
months  come  to  New  York  city  to  be  the  lauded 
and  feted.  Newspaper  reporters  met  him  as  his 
boat  landed,  eager  for  his  every  word;  Car- 
negie Hall  was  crowded  to  hear  him  read  from 
his  own  poetry;  and  his  journey  across  the 
country  was  just  a  great  triumph  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco. 

Something  had  happened  in  those  ten  years. 
This  man  had  achieved.  This  poet  had  climbed 
to  God.  This  man  had  experienced  the  "Soul's 
Leap  to  God."  He  had  found  that  Man  of  all 
men  who  once  said,  "If  I  be  lifted  up,  I  will 
draw  all  men  unto  me."  He  always  lifts  men 
out  of  nothing  into  the  glory  of  the  greatest 
achievement.  Yes,  something  had  happened  in 
those  ten  years. 

And  the  things  that  had  happened  in  those 
ten  years  are  perfectly  apparent  in  his  writings 
if  one  follow  them  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end.  And  the  things  that  had  happened  I  shall 
trace  through  this  poet's  writings  from  the  first, 
boyhood  verses  of  "Salt  Water  Ballads"  to 
"Good  Friday" ;  and  therein  lies  the  secret;  and 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS         99 

incidentally  therein  lies  some  of  the  most  thrill- 
ing human  touches,  vivid  illustrations  for  the 
preacher;  some  of  the  most  intensely  interest- 
ing religious  experiences  that  any  biography 
ever  revealed  consciously  or  unconsciously. 

I.  The  Soul  Psychology  of  His  Youth  in 
"Salt  Water  Ballads" 
One  may  search  these  "Salt  Water  Ballads" 
through  from  the  opening  line  of  "Consecra- 
tion" to  "The  Song  At  Parting"  and  find  no 
faint  suggestion  of  that  deep  religious  glory 
of  "The  Everlasting  Mercy."  This  book  was 
written,  even  as  Masefield  says,  "in  my  boy- 
hood ;  all  of  it  in  my  youth."  He  has  not  caught 
the  deeper  meaning  of  life  yet — the  spiritual 
meaning — although  he  has  caught  the  social 
meaning,  just  as  Markham  has  caught  it. 

I.  Social  Consciousness 

Even  in  "Consecration"  we  hear  the  chal- 
lenging ring  of  a  young  voice  who  has  wan- 
dered over  the  face  of  the  earth  and  has  taken 
his  place  with  the  "Outcast,"  has  cast  his  lot 
with  the  sailor,  the  stoker,  the  tramp. 

"Not  the  ruler  for  me,  but  the  ranker,  the  tramp  of  the  road, 
The  slave  with  the  sack  on  his  shoulders  pricked  on  with 

the  goad, 
The  man  with  too  weighty  a  burden,  too  weary  a  load. 


loo  GIANT  HOURS 

"Others  may  sing  of  the  wine  and  the  wealth,  and  the  mirth, 
The  portly  presence  of  potentates  goodly  in  girth ; 
Mine  be  the  dirt  and  the  dross,  the  dust,  and  the  scum  of 
the  earth  I 

"Mine  be  a  handful  of  ashes,  a  mouthful  of  rnould. 
Of  the  maimed,  of  the  halt  and  the  blind  in  the  rain  and 

the  cold — 
Of  these  shall  my   songs  be   fashioned,    my  tales  be   told. 
Amen." 

Salt  Water  Poems  and  Ballads. 

And  it  is  a  most  fascinating  story  to  see  him 
climb  from  his  boyhood,  purely  social,  sym- 
pathetic interest  in  the  outcast  to  that  higher, 
that  highest  social  consciousness,  vitalized  with 
religion.  Here,  seems  it  to  me,  that  those  who 
possess  true  social  consciousness  must  come  at 
last  if  they  do  their  most  effective  work  for  the 
social  regeneration  of  the  world.  Many  have 
tremendous  social  consciousness,  but  no  Christ. 
Christ  himself  is  the  very  pulse  beat  of  the 
social  regeneration.    Without  him  it  must  fail. 

One  feels,  even  here  in  his  youth  poems,  how- 
ever, a  promise  of  that  deeper  Masefield  that 
later  finds  his  soul  in  "The  Everlasting  Mercy." 

2.  Faith  in  Immortality 

In  "Rest  Her  Soul,"  these  haunting  lines  with 
that  expression  of  a  deep  faith  found  in  "All 
that  dies  of  her,"  we  find  a  ray  of  light,  which 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        loi 

slants  through  a  small  window  of  the  man  that 
is  to  be: 

"On  the  black  velvet  covering  her  eyes 
Let  the  dull  earth  be  thrown ; 
Her's  is  the  mightier  silence  of  the  skies, 

And  long,  quiet  rest  alone. 
Over  the  pure,  dark,  wistful  eyes  of  her, 
O'er  all  the  human,  all  that  dies  of  her, 
Gently  let  flowers  be  strown." 

Salt  Water  Poems  and  Ballads. 

But  most  of  these  ballads,  as  their  title  sug- 
gests, are  nothing  more  than  the  very  sea 
foam  of  which  they  speak,  and  whose  tale  they 
tell ;  as  compared  with  that  later,  deeper  verse 
of  Christian  hope  and  regeneration. 

And  then  pass  those  ten  years;  ten  years 
following  the  period  of  "The  Salt  Water 
Ballads";  and  ten  years  following  the  time 
when  he  was  a  "bar-boy"  in  New  York;  ten 
years  in  which  he  climbs  from  a  simple  "social 
consciousness"  to  a  social  consciousness  that 
has  the  heart  beat  of  Christ  in  its  every  line. 
The  poems  he  writes  in  this  period  are  all 
of  the  Christ.  "Good  Friday,"  perhaps  the 
strongest  poem  dealing  with  this  great  day  in 
Christ's  life,  is  full  of  a  close  knowledge  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Man  of  Galilee.  But  it  is  in  "The 
Everlasting  Mercy"  and  not  "The  Story  of  a 
Round  House"  that  we  find  Masefield  at  his  big 
best,  battering  at  the  very  doors  of  eternity  with 


I02  GIANT  HOURS 

the  fist  of  a  giant  and  the  tender  love  of  a 
woman,  and  the  plea  of  a  penitent  sinner. 

Something  had  happened  to  Masefield  in 
those  ten  years.  A  man's  entire  life  had  been 
revolutionized ;  and  his  poetry  with  it.  He  still 
feels  the  want  and  need  of  the  world,  and  the 
social  injustice ;  but  he  has  found  the  cure.  In 
a  word,  he  has  been  converted.  I  do  not  care 
whether  or  no  Masefield  means  to  tell  his  own 
story  in  "The  Everlasting  Mercy,"  but  i  do 
know  that  he  tells,  in  spite  of  himself,  a  story 
that  fits  curiously  into,  and  marvelously  ex- 
plains, the  strange  revolution  and  change  in 
his  own  life  from  ''Salt  Water  Ballads"  to 
"Good  Friday." 

II.     Conversion 

It  is  an  old-fashioned  Methodist  conversion 
of  which  he  tells,  which  links  itself  up  with  the 
New  Testament  gospel  of  the  regeneration  of 
a  human  soul  in  such  a  fascinating  way  that 
it  gives  those  of  us  who  preach  this  gospel  an 
impelling,  modern,  dramatic  putting  of  the  old, 
old  story,  that  will  thrill  our  congregations  and 
grip  the  hearts  of  men  who  know  not  the  Christ. 

I.  Conviction  of  Sin 

Saul  Kane  was  an  amateur  prizefighter.  He 
and  his  friend  Bill  have  a  fight  in  the  opening 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        103 

lines  of  the  tale,  and  Saul  wins.  This  victory 
is  followed  by  the  usual  debauch,  which  lasts 
until  all  the  drunken  crowd  are  asleep  on  the 
floor  of  the  "Lion."  No  Russian  novelist,  nor 
a  Dostoievesky,  nor  another,  ever  dared  such 
realism  as  Masefield  has  given  us  in  his  picture 
of  this  night's  sin.  He  makes  sin  all  that  it 
is — black  and  hideous : 

"From  three  long  hours  of  gin  and  smokes, 

And  two  girls'  breath  and  fifteen  blokes, 

A  warmish  night  and  windows  shut 

The  room  stank  like  a  fox's  gut. 

The  heat,  and  smell,  and  drinking  deep 

Began  to  stun  the  gang  to  sleep." 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

But  this  was  too  much  for  Saul  Kane.  He 
had  still  enough  decency  left  to  be  ashamed. 
He  wanted  air.  He  went  to  a  window  and 
threw  it  open : 

"I  opened  window  wide  and  leaned 
Out  of  that  pigsty  of  the  fiend. 
And  felt  a  cool  wind  go  like  grace 
About  the  sleeping  market-place. 
The  clock  struck  three,  and  sweetly,  slowly, 
The  bells  chimed.  Holy,  Holy,  Holy; 
And  in  a  second's  pause  there  fell 
The  cold  note  of  the  chapel  bell. 
And  then  a  cock  crew  flapping  wings, 
And  summat  made  me  think  of  things  1" 

The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

There  it  is :  sin,  and  conviction  of  sin.  Per- 
haps he  thought  of  another  man  who  had  vir- 


104  GIANT  HOURS 

tually  betrayed  the  Christ,  and  the  cock  crew 
and  made  that  other  "think  o'  things." 

Then  came  the  reaction  from  that  convic- 
tion; the  battle  against  that  same  conviction 
that  he  must  give  up  sin  and  surrender  to  the 
Christ ;  and  a  terrific  battle  it  is,  and  a  terrific 
description  of  that  battle  Masefield  gives  us, 
lightninglike  in  its  vividness  until  there  comes 
the  little  woman  of  God,  Miss  Bourne  (a  dea- 
coness, if  you  please),  who  has  always  known 
the  better  man  in  Saul,  who  has  followed  him 
with  her  Christly  love  like  "The  Hound  of 
Heaven."  And  how  tenderly,  yet  how  insis- 
tently, how  pleadingly  she  speaks : 

"  'Saul  Kane,'  she  said,  'when  next  you  drink, 
Do  me  the  gentleness  to  think 
That  every  drop  of  drink  accursed 
Makes  Christ  within  you  die  of  thirst ; 
That  every  dirty  word  you  say 
Is  one  more  flint  upon   His  way, 
Another  thorn  about  His  head, 
Another  mock  by  where  He  tread; 
Another  nail  another  cross ; 
All  that  you  are  is  that  Christ's  loss.' " 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

These  searching  words  were  beyond  defeat. 
They  went  home  to  his  already  convicted  heart 
and  mind  like  arrows.  They  hurt.  They  cut. 
They  awakened.  They  called.  They  pierced. 
They  pounded  with  giant  fists.     They  lashed 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        105 

like  spiked  whips.  They  burned  hke  a  soul  on 
fire.  They  clamored,  and  they  whispered  like  a 
mother's  love,  and  at  last  his  heart  opened : 

2.  Forgiveness 

"I  know  the  very  words  I  said, 
They  bayed  like  bloodhounds  in  my  head. 
'The  water's  going  out  to  sea 
And  there's  a  great  moon  calHng  me ; 
But  there's  a  great  sun  calls  the  moon, 
And  all  God's  bells  will  carol  soon 
For  joy  and  glory,  and  delight 
Of  some  one  coming  home  to-night' " 

The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

And  then  came  the  consciousness  that  he  was 
"done  with  sin"  forever: 

"I  knew  that  I  had  done  with  sin, 
I  knew  that  Christ  had  given  me  birth 
To  brother  all  the  souls  on  earth," 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

which  was  followed  by  two  "glories" — the 
"Glory  of  the  Lighted  Mind"  and  the  "Glory 
of  the  Lighted  Soul."  I  think  that  perhaps  in 
our  preaching  on  conversion  we  make  too  little 
of  the  regeneration  of  the  "mind."  Masefield 
does  not  miss  one  whit  of  a  complete  regenera- 
tion. 

3.  The  Joy  of  Conversion 

"O  glory  of  the  lighted  mind. 
JIow  dead  I'd  been,  how  dumb,  how  blind! 


V 


io6  GIANT  HOURS 

The  station  brook  to  my  new  eyes 
Was  babbling  out  of  Paradise, 
The  waters  rushing  from  the  rain 
Were  singing,  'Christ  has  risen  again !' " 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

And  then  the  soul  glory : 

"O  glory  of  the  lighted  Soul. 
The  dawn  came  up  on  Bradlow  Knoll, 
The  dawn  with  glittering  on  the  grasses, 
The  dawn  which  pass  and  never  passes." 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

But  that  wasn't  all.  Masefield  knows  that 
the  other  self  must  be  completely  eradicated, 
so  he  makes  Saul  Kane  change  his  environ- 
ment entirely.  He  goes  to  the  country.  He 
plows,  and  as  he  plows  he  learns  the  lesson  of 
the  soil  and  cries : 

"O  Jesus,  drive  the  coulter  deep 
To  plow  my  living  man  from  sleep." 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

And  more  word  from  Christ  as  he  plowed : 

"I  knew  that  Christ  was  there  with  Callow, 
That  Christ  was  standing  there  with  me, 
That  Christ  had  taught  me  what  to  be. 
That  I  should  plow  and  as  I  plowed 
My  Saviour  Christ  would  sing  aloud. 
And  as  I  drove  the  clods  apart 
Christ  would  be  plowing  in  my  heart, 
Through  rest-harrow  and  bitter  roots. 
Through  all  my  bad  life's  rotten  fruits." 
The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  the  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street. 

And  so  it  is,  that  beginning  with  his  poems 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        107 

of  youth,  John  Masefield  starts  out  with  a  sym- 
pathetic social  consciousness,  but  nothing  more 
apparently.  He  brothers  with  the  outcast  and 
frankly  prefers  it.  Then  comes  the  great  re- 
generating influence  in  his  life,  which  we  surely 
find  in  his  expression  of  faith  that  the  soul  is 
immortal,  and  finally  that  upheaval  which  we 
call  conversion  with  all  of  its  incident  steps 
from  conviction  of  sin  to  repentance ;  and  then 
to  the  consciousness  of  forgiveness;  to  the 
lighted  mind  and  the  lighted  soul ;  and  then  to 
the  uprooting  of  evil  and  the  planting  of  good 
in  the  soil  of  his  life.  And  so  through  Saul 
Kane  we  see  John  Masefield  and  have  an  ex- 
planation of  that  subtle  yet  revolutionary 
change  in  his  life  and  his  poetry,  pregnant  with 
illustrations  that,  to  quote  another  English 
poet,  Noyes,  ''Would  make  the  dead  arise  V 


io8  GIANT  HOURS 

VIII 
ROBERT  SERVICE,  POET  OF  VIRILITY^ 

A  Study  of  High  Peaks  and  High  Hopes;  of 
White  Snows  and  White  Lives;  of  Sin  and 
Death  ;  of  Heaven  and  God 

A  PREACHER  once  preached  a  sermon, 
and  in  the  opening  moments  of  this  ser- 
mon he  quoted  eight  hnes,  and  a  lay- 
man said  at  the  conclusion  of  this  sermon,  ''Ah, 
the  sermon  was  fine,  but  those  lines  that  you 
quoted — they  were  tremendous;  they  gripped 
me !"  And  those  lines  were  from  Robert  Serv- 
ice, the  poet  of  the  Alaskan  ice-peaks,  of  the 
Yukon's  turbulent  blue  waters,  of  the  great 
silences,  of  the  high  peaks  and  high  hopes;  of 
men  and  gold  and  sin  and  death. 

And  the  lines  that  gripped  the  layman  were : 

"I've  stood  in  some  mighty-mouthed  hollow 
That's  plumb-full  of  hush  to  the  brim; 
I've  watched  the  big  husky  sun  wallow 
In  crimson  and  gold,  and  grow  dim; 


'The  poetical  selections  appearing  in  this  chapter  are  used  by  per- 
mission, and  are  taken  from  the  following  works:  The  Spell  of  the 
Yukon;  Rhymes  of  a  Red  Cross  Man,  published  by  Barse  &  Hopkins, 
New  York;  Rhymes  of  a  Rolling  Stone,  published  by  Dodd,  Mead  & 
Co.,   New  York, 


ROBERT  SERVICE 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        109 

Till  the  moon  set  the  pearly  peaks  gleaming 
And  the  stars  tumbled  out  neck  and  crop; 

And  I've  thought  that  I  surely  was  dreaming 
With  the  peace  o'  the  world  piled  on  top." 

The   Spell   of  the  Yukon. 

Everything  that  the  great  northland  holds 
was  dear  to  him  and  clear  to  him  and  near  to 
him.  He  knew  it  all  as  intimately  as  a  child 
knows  his  own  backyard.  He  makes  it  as  dear 
and  near  and  clear  too,  to  those  who  read : 

"The  summer — no  sweeter  was  ever, 
The  sunshiny  woods  all  athrill; 
The  grayling  aleap  in  the  river, 
The  bighorn  asleep  on  the  hill ; 
The  strong  life  that  never  knows  harness, 

The  wilds  where  the  caribou  call ; 
The  freedom,  the  freshness,  the  farness; 
O  God !  how  I'm  stuck  on  it  all !" 

The   Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

Virile  as  the  mountains  that  he  has  neigh- 
bored with;  clean  as  the  snows  that  have 
blinded  his  eyes,  and  made  beautiful  the  val- 
leys ;  subdued  to  love  of  God  through  the  height 
and  the  might  of  all  that  he  sees,  with  a  vigor 
that  shakes  one  awake,  he  speaks,  not  forget- 
ting the  pines ;  for  the  pines  are  kith  and  kin  to 
the  mountains  and  the  snows: 

"Wind   of   the   East,  wind  of   the   West,   wandering  to  and 

fro. 
Chant  your  hymns   in  our  topmost  limbs,   that  the  sons  of 

men  may  know 
That  the  peerless  pine  was  the  first  to  come,  and  the  pine 

will  be  the  last  to  go. 


no  GIANT  HOURS 

"Sun,  moon,  and  stars  give  answer;  shall  we  not  staunchly 
stand 
Even  as  now,  forever,  wards  of  the  wilder  strand. 
Sentinels  of  the  stillness,  lords  of  the  last,  lone  land?" 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

And  these  white  peaks,  and  these  lone  sen- 
tinels lift  one  nearer  to  God : 

"But  the  stars  throng  out  in  their  glory, 

And  they  sing  of  the  God  in  man; 
They  sing  of  the  Mighty  Master, 

Of  the  loom  his  fingers  span, 
Where  a  star  or  a  soul  is  a  part  of  the  whole, 
And  weft  in  the  wondrous  plan. 

"Here  by  the  camp-fire's  flicker. 
Deep  in  my  blanket  curled, 
I  long  for  the  peace  of  the  pine-gloom, 

Where  the  scroll  of  the  Lord  is  unfurled. 
And  the  wind  and  the  wave  are  silent, 
And  world  is  singing  to  world." 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

"Have  you  strung  your  soul  to  silence?"  he 
abruptly  asks  in  "The  Call  of  the  Wild";  and 
again,  another  searching  query,  "Have  you 
known  the  great  White  Silence,  not  a  snow- 
gemmed  twig  aquiver  ?  ( Eternal  truths  which 
shame  our  soothing  lies.)"  And  again  another 
query  that  rips  the  soul  open,  and  that  tears 
off  life's  veneer: 

"Have  you  suffered,  starved,  and  triumphed,  groveled  down, 
yet  grasped  at  glory, 
Grown  bigger  in  the  bigness  of  the  whole? 
'Done  things,'  just  for  the  doing,  letting  babblers  tell  the  story. 
See  through  the  nice  veneer  the  naked  soul  ?" 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        iii 

and  how  his  virile  soul  rings  its  tribute  to  the 
"silent  men  who  do  things!" — the  kind  that  the 
world  finds  once  in  a  century  for  its  great 
needs : 

"The  simple  things,  the  true  things,  the  silent  men  who  do 
things—."  Tljg  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

Sin  and  Death 

The  world  is  full  of  sin  and  death,  and  the 
former  is  so  often  the  father  of  the  other. 
Service  has  seen  this  in  the  far,  hard,  cruel 
northland  as  no  other  can  see  it.  The  hollow- 
ness  of  material  things  he  learns  from  this  land 
of  yellow  gold,  the  very  soul  of  the  material 
quest  of  the  world.  He  learns  that  "It  isn't  the 
gold  that  we're  wanting,  so  much  as  just 
finding  the  gold:" 

"There's  gold,  and  it's  haunting  and  haunting; 
It's  luring  me  on  as  of  old ; 
Yet  it  isn't  the  gold  that  I'm  wanting 

So  much  as  just  finding  the  gold. 
It's  the  great,  big,  broad  land  'way  up  yonder, 

It's  the  forests  where  silence  has  lease; 
It's  the  beauty  that  thrills  me  with  wonder, 
It's  the  stillness  that  fills  me  with  peace." 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

Or  another  verse : 

"I  wanted  the  gold,  and  I  sought  it ; 

I  scrabbled  and  mucked  like  a  slave. 
Was  it  famine  or  scurvy — I  fought  it; 
I  hurled  my  youth  into  a  grave. 


112  GIANT  HOURS 

I  wanted  the  gold,  and  I  got  it — 
Came  out  with  a  fortune  last  fall — 

Yet  somehow  life's  not  what  I  thought  it, 
And  somehow  the  gold  isn't  all." 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

Who  has  not  learned  that  ?  Thank  God  for  the 
lesson !  Too  many  of  us  hurl  our  youths,  aye, 
our  lives  into  the  grave  learning  that,  and  only 
come  to  know  at  last  that  Joaquin  Miller  was 
right  when  he  said, 

"All  you  can  take  in  your  cold,  dead  hand 
Is  what  you  have  given  away." 

And  how  the  warning  against  sin  hurtles  its 
way  into  your  soul ;  its  grip ;  its  age ;  its  power : 

"It  grips  you  like  some  kinds  of  sinning; 
It  twists  you  from  foe  to  a  friend; 
It  seems  it's  been  since  the  beginning; 
It  seems  it  will  be  to  the  end." 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon, 

Sin  is  like  that.  Service  is  right!  Sin  lures, 
and  calls  under  the  guise  of  beauty.  But  sin, 
as  John  Masefield  shows  in  "The  Everlasting 
Mercy,"  is  ugly.  In  the  modern  word  of  the 
street  "Sin  will  get  you."  Service  says  the 
same  thing  in  "It  grips  you." 

God  and  Heaven 
Maybe  you  have  never  thought  of  God  as 
the  God  of  the  trails  and  Alaskan  reaches,  but 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        113 

Service  makes  you  see  him  as  "The  God  of  the 
trails  untrod"  in  "The  Heart  of  the  Sour- 
dough." He  does  not  leave  God  out.  Nor  do 
these  rough  men  of  the  avalanches,  the  frozen 
rivers,  the  gold  trails,  which  are  death  trails. 
Indeed,  these  are  the  very  men  who  know  God, 
for  do  not  their  "Lives  just  hang  by  a  hair"? 

"I  knew  it  would  call,  or  soon  or  late,  as  it  calls  the  whirring 

wings ; 
It's  the  olden  lure,  it's  the  golden  lure,  it's  the  lure  of  the 

timeless  things, 
And  to-night,  O,  God  of  the  trails  untrod,  how  it  whines  in 
my  heart-strings !" 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

This  God  leads  to  "The  Land  of  Beyond," 
the  heaven  of  the  gold  seeker : 

"Thank  God !  there  is  always  a  Land  of  Beyond 
For  us  who  are  true  to  the  trail ; 
A  vision  to  seek,  a  beckoning  peak, 

A  farness  that  never  will  fail; 
A  pride  in  our  soul  that  mocks  at  a  goal, 

A  manhood  that  irks  at  a  bond, 
And  try  how  we  will,  unattainable  still, 
Behold  it,  our  Land  of  Beyond !" 

Rhymes  of  a  Rolling  Stone. 

And  the  northman  cannot  forget  death,  as 
we  have  suggested,  because  he  is  face  to  face 
with  it  all  the  time,  at  every  turn  of  a  river; 
at  every  jump  from  cake  to  floe,  at  every  step 
of  every  trail: 


114  GIANT  HOURS 

Just  Think! 

"Just  think !  some  night  the  stars  will  gleam 

Upon  a  cold,  grey   stone, 
And  trace  a  name  with  silver  beam, 
And  lo  I  'twill  be  your  own. 

"That  night  is  speeding  on  to  greet 

Your  epitaphic  rhyme. 
Your  life  is  but  a  little  beat 
Within  the  heart  of  Time. 

"A  little  gain,  a  little  pain, 

A  laugh  lest  you  may  moan; 
A  little  blame,  a  little  fame, 
A  star-^leam  on  a  stone." 

Rhymes  of  a  Rolling  Stone. 

Perhaps  it  is  because  the  men  of  the  north 
are  always  so  near  to  death  and  so  conscious 
of  death  that  they  hold  to  the  strict  Puritanical 
rules  of  conduct  that  they  do,  expressed  in 
Service's  "The  Woman  and  the  Angel,"  that 
story  of  the  Angel  who  came  down  to  earth 
and  withstood  all  the  temptations  until  he  met 
the  beautiful,  sinning  woman,  and  who  was 
about  to  fall.    Hear  her  tempt  him : 

"Then  sweetly  she  mocked  his  scruples,  and  softly  she  him 

beguiled : 
'You,  who  are  verily  man  among  men,  speak  with  the  tongue 

of  a  child. 
We  have  outlived  the  old  standards ;  we  have  burst  like  an 

overtight  thong 
The    ancient    outworn,    Puritanic    traditions    of    Right    and 
Wrong.' " 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        115 

"Then  the  Master  feared  for  His  angel,  and  called  him  again 

to  His  side, 
For  O,  the  woman  was  wondrous,   and  O,  the  angel  was 

tried ! 
And  deep  in  his  hell  sang  the  devil,  and  this  was  the  strain 

of  his  song: 
'The  ancient,   outworn.    Puritanic   traditions   of    Right   and 

Wrong.' " 

The  Spell  of  the  Yukon. 

And  I  doubt  not,  but  that  we  all  need  that 
warning  not  to  give  up  "The  ancient,  outworn, 
Puritanic  traditions  of  Right  and  Wrong." 


Rhymes  of  a  Red  Cross  Man 

Here  it  is  that  we  find  a  consciousness  of  the 
Eternal  creeping  through  the  smoke  and  din 
and  glare.  Here,  like  the  hard,  dangerous  life 
of  the  Alaskan  trails,  only  harder  and  more 
dangerous;  here  amid  war  in  "The  Fool"  we 
catch  six  last  lines  that  thrill  us : 

"He  died  with  the  glory  of  faith  in  his  eyes, 
And  the  glory  of  love  in  his  heart. 
And  though  there's  never  a  grave  to  tell, 
Nor  a  cross  to  mark  his  fall. 
Thank  God  we  know  that  he  "batted  well" 
In  the  last  great  Game  of  all." 

Rhymes  of  a  Red  Cross  Man. 

And  even  amid  the  terrible  thunder  of  war 
the  "Lark"  sings,  as  Service  reminds  us  in  his 
poem  of  that  name,  sings  and  points  to  heaven : 


ii6  GIANT  HOURS 

"Pure  heart  of  songl  do  you  not  know 
That  we  are  making  earth  a  hell? 
Or  is  it  that  you  try  to  show 

Life  still  is  joy  and  all  is  well? 
Brave  little  wings !     Ah,  not  in  vain 

You  beat  into  that  bit  of  blue : 
Lo !  we  who  pant  in  war's  red  rain 
Lift  shining  eyes,  see  Heaven  tool" 

Rhymes  of  a.  Red  Cross  Man. 

To  close  this  study  of  Service,  which  has  run 
from  the  hard  battle  ground  of  the  Alaskan 
trails  to  the  harder  battle  ground  of  France; 
which  has  run  from  a  study  of  white  peaks  and 
white  lives,  to  high  peaks  and  high  hopes, 
through  sin  and  death  to  heaven  and  the  Father 
himself,  I  quote  the  closing  lines  of  Service's 
"The  Song  of  the  Wage  Slave,"  which  will  re- 
mind the  reader  in  tone  and  spirit  of  Mark- 
ham's  "The  Man  with  the  Hoe" : 

"Master,  I've  filled  my  contract,  wrought  in  thy  many  lands; 
Not  by  my  sins  wilt  thou  judge  me,  but  by  the  work  of  my 

hands. 
Master,  I've  done  thy  bidding,  and  the  light  is  low  in  the  west, 
And  the  long,  long  shift  is  over — Master,  I've  earned  it — 

Rest" 


RUPERT  BROOKE 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        117 

IX 

RUPERT  BROOKE^ 

Preacher  of  Friendship^  Love_,  Country, 
Gods,  and  God 

WILFRED  GIBSON  expressed  it  for 
us  all;  voiced  the  sorrow  and  the 
hope  in  the  death  of  Rupert  Brooke, 
a  victim  of  the  Hun  as  well  as  that  other  giant 
of  art,  the  Rheims  Cathedral;  expressed  it  in 
these  lines  written  shortly  after  Rupert  Brooke 
died: 

"He's  gone. 
I  do  not  understand. 
I  only  know 
That,  as  he  turned  to  go 
And  waved  his  hand, 
In  his  young  eyes  a  sudden  glory  shone, 
And  I  was  dazzled  by  a  sunset  glow — 
And  he  was  gone." 

Thanks,  Wilfred  Gibson,  you  who  have  made 
articulate  the  voice  of  the  downtrodden  of  the 
world,  the  poetic  "Fires"  which  have  lighted 
up  with  sudden  glow  the  slums,  the  slag  heaps, 

iThe  poetical  selections  from  the  writings  of  Rupert  Brooke  appear- 
ing in  this  chapter  are  used  by  permission,  and  are  taken  from  The 
Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke,  published  by  John  Lane  Company, 
New  York. 


ii8  GIANT  HOURS 

the  factories,  the  coal  mines,  and  hidden  com- 
mon ways  of  folks  who  toil;  thanks  that  you 
have  also  beautifully  lighted  up  the  "End  of 
the  Trail"  of  your  friend  and  our  friend,  Poet 
Rupert  Brooke;  lighted  it  with  the  light  that 
shines  from  eternity.  We  owe  you  debt  un- 
payable for  that. 

And  you  yourself,  war-dead  poet,  you  sang 
your  end,  full  knowing  that  it  would  come,  as 
it  did  on  foreign  soil,  far  from  the  England 
that  you  loved  and  voiced  so  wondrously.  And 
now  these  lines  that  you  wrote  of  your  own 
possible  passing  have  new  meaning  for  us  who 
remain  to  mourn  your   going: 

"If  I  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me : 

That  there's  some  corner  of  a  foreign  field 
That  is  forever  England.     There  shall  be 

In  that  rich  earth  a  richer  dust  concealed ; 
A  dust  whom  England  bore,  shaped,  made  aware, 

Gave,  once,  her  flowers  to  love,  her  ways  to  roam ; 
A  body  of  England's,  breathing  English  air, 
Washed  by  the  rivers,  blest  by  suns  of  home." 

The  Collected  Poems  of   Rupert  Brooke. 

And  so  here,  even  in  this  hymn  of  your  pass- 
ing, you  have  given  a  striking  illustration  of 
one  of  your  strongest  characteristics,  love  of 
homeland.  Poet  of  Youth  who  left  us  so  early 
in  life,  take  your  place  along  with  Byron,  and 
Shelley,  and  our  own  Seeger — a  quartette  of 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        119 

immortals,  whose  voices  were  heard,  but,  Hke 
the  horns  of  Elfland,  "faintly  blowing"  when 
they  were  hushed.  Though  you  were  but  a 
youthful  voice,  yet  left  you  poetry  worth  listen- 
ing to,  and  preached  a  gospel  that  will  make 
a  better  world,  though  it  had  not  gone  far 
enough  to  save  the  world. 

The  Gospel  of  Friendship 

Among  the  few  definite,  outstanding  gos- 
pels that  Brooke  preached  is  seen  the  gospel  of 
friendship.    In  "The  Jolly  Company"  he  says: 

"O  white  companionship !     You  only 

In  love,  in  faith  unbroken  dwell, 
Friends,  radiant  and  inseparable  1" 

"Light-hearted  and  glad  they  seemed  to  me 
And  merry  comrades,  even   so 
God  out  of  heaven  may  laugh  to  see. — " 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

Then,  again,  in  a  poem  which  he  called 
"Lines  Written  in  the  Belief  That  the  An- 
cient Roman  Festival  of  the  Dead  Was  Called 
Ambarvalia,"  he  voices  in  an  even  more  strik- 
ing quatrain  the  immortality  of  friendship. 
What  a  thrill  of  hope  runs  through  us  here  as 
we,  who  believe  that  life  brings  no  richer  gold 
than  friendship,  read  this  poet's  thought  that 
friendship  too  shall  last  beyond  the  years ! 


I20  GIANT  HOURS 

"And  I  know,  one  night,  on  some  far  height, 
In  the  tongue  I  never  knew, 
I  yet  shall  hear  the  tidings  clear 

From  them  that  were  friends  of  you. — " 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

The  Gospel  of  Love 

And  where  Friendship  sweeps  into  love  who 
shall  tell,  or  where  the  dividing  line  is?  But 
while  Brooks  lived  he  forgot  not  love.  His 
was  a  throbbing,  beating  love  whose  light  was 
a  beacon  night  and  day ;  a  beacon  of  which  he 
was  not  ashamed.  He  set  the  fires  of  romantic 
love  burning  and  when  he  went  away  he  left 
them  burning  so  that  their  light  might  light 
the  way  for  other  poets  and  other  lovers  and 
other  travelers  when  they  came.  He  believed, 
like  Noyes,  that  love  should  not  be  weak;  that 
that  was  the  great  hope.    Noyes  said : 

"But  one  thing  is  needful,  and  ye  shall  be  true 
To  yourselves  and  the  goal  and  the  God  that  ye  seek; 
Yea,  the  day  and  the  night  shall  requite  it  to  you 
If  ye  love  one  another  if  your  love  be  not  weak." 

From   Collected   Poems   of   Alfred   Noyes. 

Now  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  the  love 
that  Brooke  sang  was  exactly  the  type  that 
Noyes  sang  in  these  four  lines.  In  fact,  one 
feels  a  difference  as  he  reads  the  two  English 
poets,  but  they  are  alike  in  that  each  agreed 
that  Love  should  not  be  weak,  whatever  it  was. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        121 

Brooke  sang  of  romantic  love,  high  and  holy 
as  that  is;  love  of  Youth  for  Maiden,  lad  for 
lass,  and  man  for  woman;  and  thank  God  for 
the  high  clean  song  that  he  gave  to  it  in  such 
lines  as  in  ''The  Great  Lover" : 

"Love  is  a  flame ; — we  have  beaconed  the  world's  night. 
A  city : — and  we  have  built  it,  these  and  I. 
An  emperor : — we  have  taught  the  world  to  die." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

And  again  in  that  same  great  poem : 

" — Oh,  never  a  doubt  but,  somewhere,  I  shall  wake, 
And  give  what's  left  of  love  again,  and  make 
New  friends,  now  strangers.    ..." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

The  Gospel  of  Love  for  One's  Country 
And  who  shall  say  where  the  line  of  cleavage 
is  between  that  love  which  clings  to  Friends; 
and  that  greater  or  conjugal  love  which  moulds 
man  and  woman  into  one;  and  love  for  chil- 
dren, blood  of  one's  blood,  and  love  of  country ; 
and  love  of  God?  I  say  that  those  who  are 
truly  the  great  Lovers  of  the  world  love  all  of 
these  and  that  not  one  is  omitted.  At  least  the 
truly  great  Lovers  have  the  capacity  for  love 
of  all  these  types.  I  have  found  no  expression 
of  paternal  love  in  Brooke,  for  he  had  not  come 
to  that  great  experience  of  life  before  Death 
claimed  him.  And  because  Death  robbed  him 
of  that  experience  Death  robbed  us  of  a  rare 


122  GIANT  HOURS 

interpretation  of  that  special  type  of  Love. 
But  of  all  these  other  types  which  I  have  men- 
tioned we  have  a  clear  expression  in  the  slender 
volume  of  poems  that  he  left  us  as  our  herit- 
age from  his  estate.  And,  since  we  have  al- 
ready read  one  beautiful  expression  of  this 
love  for  his  country  in  the  opening  paragraphs 
of  this  chapter,  we  will  add  here  another  stanza 
of  that  noble  expression  of  his  love  for  old 
England. 

"And  think,  this  heart,  all  evil  shed  away, 
A  pulse  in  the  eternal  mind,  no  less 

Gives  somewhere  back  the  thoughts  by  England  given ; 
Her  sights  and  sounds ;  dreams  happy  as  her  day ; 
And  laughter,  learnt  of  friends ;  and  gentleness, 
In  hearts  at  peace,  under  an  English  heaven." 

The  Collected  Poems  of   Rupert  Brooke. 

What  a  voice  for  the  times!  What  a  voice 
for  America!  Would  that  some  American 
Brooke  might  arise  to  sing  this  same  deep 
song. 

A  Gospel  of  the  Gods 

Rupert  Brooke  had  a  wide  range  of  interests 
as  indeed  any  great  Lover  of  Life  and  living- 
must  have.  He  expressed  the  hopelessness  of 
the  heathen  gods  in  a  poem  which  he  called 
"On  the  Death  of  Smet-Smet,  the  Hippopot- 
omus-Goddess"  in  lines  that  fairly  sparkle  with 
the  electricity  of  destruction  and  sarcasm : 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        123 

"She  was   wrinkled   and   huge  and   hideous?     She  was   our 

Mother. 
She  was  lustful  and  lewd  ? — but  a  God ;  we  had  none  other. 
In  the  day  She  was  hidden  and  dumb,  but  at  nightfall  moaned 

in  the  shade; 
We  shuddered  and  gave  Her  Her  will  in  the  darkness ;  we 

were  afraid. 

(The  People  without) 
"She  sent  us  pain, 

And  we  bowed  before   Her; 
She  smiled  again 

And  bade  us  adore  Her. 
She   solaced  our  woe 

And  soothed  our  sighing; 
And  what  shall   we  do 
Now  God  is  dying?" 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

And  so  it  was  that  with  the  deepest  sense  of 
understanding,  with  the  deepest  sympathy, 
without  intolerance  Brooke,  in  this  one  verse 
sets  the  Heathen  gods  where  they  belong  and 
sets  us  where  we  belong  in  our  relations  to 
those  who  worship  these  gods  and  goddesses. 
It  is  all  they  have.  We  have  no  right  to  sneer 
and  scorn  until  we  are  able  to  give  them  better. 
These  poor  Egyptians  knew  no  other  God. 
They  said  plaintively  "but  a  God ;  we  have  none 
other" ;  and  "And  what  shall  we  do  now  God  is 
dying?"  The  crime  of  destroying  faith  in  a 
lesser  god  until  one  has  seen  and  can  make  see- 
able  the  real  God  is  the  greatest  crime  of  civ- 
ilization.   And  to  this  writer's  way  of  thinking 


124  GIANT  HOURS 

there  is  no  greater  sin  than  that  of  Intolerance ; 
a  sin  to  which  a  certain  portion  of  the  institu- 
tionahzed  church  is  prone.  Noyes  shot  the  fist 
of  indignation  at  this  type  of  intolerance 
straight  from  a  manly  shoulder  when  he  said : 

"How  foolish,  then,  you  will  agree 
Are  those  who  think  that  all  must  see 
The  world  alike,  or  those  who  scorn 
Another  who,  perchance,  was  born 
Where  in  a  different  dream  from  theirs 
What  they  called  Sin  to  him  were  prayers?" 
The  Collected  Poems  of  Alfred  Noyes. 

Brooke  saw  the  same  thing  and  had  great 
tolerance  for  those  who  worshipped  the  "un- 
known gods";  worshipped  the  best  they  knew, 
although  it  were  a  feeble  worship.  He  under- 
stood their  outcry  that  they  knew  not  what  to 
do,  now  that  their  god  was  dying: 

"She  was  so  strong; 
But  death  is  stronger. 
She  ruled  us  long; 

But  time  is  longer. 
She  solaced  our  woe 

And  soothed  our  sighing; 
And  what  shall  we  do 
Now  God  is  dying?" 

The  Collected  Poems  of   Rupert  Brooke. 

The  Gospel  of  One  God 

Then  sweeping  upward,  although  one  must 
admit,  with  groping,  reaching  eagerness,  this 
young  poet  tried  to  find,  and  at  last  did  find, 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        125 

the  one  God.  He  mentions  this  God  that  he 
found  more  than  any  other  one  thing  about 
which  he  wrote,  so  far  as  I  can  find.  In  one 
slender  volume  are  more  than  a  dozen  strik- 
ing references.  Take  for  example  the  last  fif- 
teen lines  of  "The  Song  of  the  Pilgrims" : 

"O  Thou, 
God  of  all  long  desirous  roaming, 
Our  hearts  are  sick  of  fruitless  homing, 
And  crying  after  lost  desire. 
Hearten  us  onward!  as  with  fire 
Consuming  dreams  of  other  bliss. 
The  best  Thou  givest,  giving  this 
Sufficient  thing — to  travel  still 
Over  the  plain,  beyond  the  hill. 
Unhesitating  through  the  shade, 
Amid  the  silence  unafraid. 
Till,  at  some  hidden  turn,  one  sees 
Against  the  black  and  muttering  trees 
Thine  altar,  wonderfully  white, 
Among  the  Forests  of  the  Night." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

Or  again,  from  "Ambarvalia" : 

"But  laughing  and  half-way  up  to  heaven, 

With  wind  and  hill  and  star, 
I  yet  shall  keep  before  I  sleep, 
Your  Ambarvalia." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

Immortality,  which  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
the  God  of  immortality,  the  God  of  the  "Ever- 
lasting Arms,"  is  voiced  in  "Dining-Room 
Tea,"  a  poem  addressed  to  one  whom  he  loved : 


126  GIANT  HOURS 

"For  suddenly,  and  otherwhence, 
I  looked  on  your  magnificence. 
I  saw  the  stillness  and  the  light, 
And  you,  august,  immortal,  white. 
Holy  and  strange;  and  every  glint, 
Posture  and  jest  and  thought  and  tint 
Freed  from  the  mask  of  transiency, 
Triumphant  in  eternity, 
Immote,  immortal." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

Then,  speaking  of  the  war  and  peace  with 
great  yearning  and  great  faith,  the  young  poet 
cried  a  new  glory  in  what  he  calls  "God's 
Hour"  in  a  poem  on  *Teace" : 

"Now,  God  be  thanked  Who  has  matched  us  with  His  hour, 
And  caught  our  youth  and  wakened  us  from  sleeping, 

With  hand  made  sure,  clear  eye,  and  sharpened  power. 
To  turn,  as  swimmers  into  cleanness  leaping." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 

And  who  has  not  felt  this,  but  has  not  been 
able  to  thus  express  it?  And  who  has  not  seen 
that  somehow,  strangely,  mysteriously,  won- 
drously,  the  youth  not  only  of  England,  but  of 
America  has  leaped  to  "God's  Hour,"  as  Brooke 
calls  this  war ;  leaped  from  play,  and  from  list- 
lessness  in  spiritual  things;  leaped  from  indif- 
ference to  things  of  the  eternities;  leaped  to 
a  magnificent  heroism,  selflessness,  sacrifice, 
brotherhood;  leaped  to  a  new  and  Godlike  no- 
bility. 


WITH  POET  PREACHERS        127 

To  all  who  mourn  for  their  dead  lads  comes 
the  cheering  word  of  Brooke,  who  himself  paid 
the  great  debt  of  love.  It  comes  out  of  a  poem 
called  "Safety."  Read  it,  you  who  mourn,  and 
be  comforted: 

"Dear!  of  all  happy  in  the  hour,  most  blest 

He  who  has  found  our  hid  security, 
Assured  in  the  dark  tides  of  the  world  that  rest, 

And  hear  our  word,  'Who  is  so  safe  as  we?' 
'We  have  found  safety  with  all  things  undying  I' " 

The  Collected   Poems  of   Rupert   Brooke. 

"We  have  found  safety  with  all  things  undy- 
ing." Brooke  heard  God's  word  as  did  the 
prophet  of  old  crying,  "Comfort  ye,  comfort 
ye  my  people,  saith  the  Lord,"  and  this  sonnet 
comes  as  a  personal  message  to  mourn- 
ing mother  and  father  in  America.  As  they 
listen  they  hear  the  voices  of  those  they  loved 
crying:  "Who  is  so  safe  as  we?  We  have 
found  safety  with  all  things  undying."  Thank 
God  that  this  poet,  though  young,  lived  long 
enough,  and  saw  enough  of  war  and  death  to 
give  this  heartening  word  to  a  world  which 
weeps  and  wearies  with  war  and  woe  and 
want !    Thus  in  this  new  immortality  we  shall 

"Learn  all  we  lacked  before;  hear,  know  and  say 

What  this  tumultuous  body  now  denies ; 
And  feel,  who  have  laid  our  groping  hands  away; 
And  see,  no  longer  blinded  by  our  eyes." 

The  Collected  Poems  of  Rupert  Brooke. 


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